Flight of the Phoenix
by Elizabeth Carter
Summary: Book two: Sovereign is dead, the citadel once ruins is beginning to rebuild, the Council is saved and now Shepard is faced with a new enemy, one held over from ancient days: The Collectors. She must race against time, Cerberus and the shadows of a war yet to come. This is part two to book one.This is a retelling of ME2. Many game elements are changed because Shepard didn't die.
1. Nevermind the Knight Watch the Pawn

CHAPTER ONE: Nevermind the Knight-Watch the Pawn

All necessary security precautions.

That had been Shepard's last command to the green skinned asari, Miranda now knew was none other than the highly talented and exceptionally successful bounty hunter Aleena. So that was how Shepard 'took care of' the huntress. She recruited her. Turn the enemy into a powerful ally. Lawson found it rather ironic humanity's first Spectre had achieved the very same thing Cerberus had been attempting to do with Shepard.

Lawson couldn't help but speculate on how Shepard managed it. Had she cajoled, threatened or pressed the asari into service? Or had she simply asked? Showed Aleena what was at stake and asked her to serve? Whatever means Shepard had used, the huntress was utterly devoted to her Commander. There was no mistaking that kind of loyalty. Miranda knew it well for it was what she held for Cerberus and what it stood for.

Before Shepard kidnapped Oriana, Miranda was slipping-almost having a crisis of faith in the doctrine of Cerberus and the truth given to them by the Illusive Man. But with her innocent sister snatched Lawson dug-in and become steadfast in her convictions. Despite her new biotic prowess Lawson did not believe Shepard was up to the task of stopping the Collectors and defeating the Reapers. Not if her mental stability was so easily snapped because of the death of a fetus that wasn't even biologically hers. Admittedly it was tragic that the alien child had to die, but the sacrifice was necessary if only to prove Shepard's incapability to overcome personal matters. If Shepard allowed herself to be so consumed by rage and grief how could she possibly be the icon, the hero the galaxy needed to stand behind when the Reapers finally came?

Short answer. She couldn't.

Not unless Cerberus rebuilt her in their image. But first they would have to finish breaking her.

As the Spectre had promised, Miranda was greeted at the airlock of the _Normandy_ by a full squad of asari commandos: six in total. Had she the time or the inclination, she might have recognized a few of them as the same ones who had accompanied Shepard when she had stormed the sorority house back on Illium. At the moment her mind was absorbing the details of the ship itself. She had to hand it to the asari engineers; they definitely knew how to put a ship together. Not only were the wavecrest frigates a beautiful sleek design, reminiscent of the great prehistoric pterodactyls of Earth, they were as swift and deadly as their Thessian namesake. Within, the bulkheads had a gently sloping curvature to them that the asari favored rather than the more sharp right angles found on vessels constructed by other species, including human. Having been on a few asari luxury liners Miranda also thought the asari concept of shipbuilding was very art nouveau with a bit of art deco and a hint of Jules Verne in them. Captain Nemo would have been very much at home on the _Normandy_ as he was on _Nautilus_.

The operative's momentary appreciation was cut short however as she was escorted from the shuttle bay's aft cargo lift into the crew deck where the sickbay was located. Of course she had to submit to a routine physical exam. _Can't have any nasty secret surprises interrupting what was sure to be (wink-wink) a by the book interrogation of an enemy agent, now can we?_

What surprised her when she entered the sterile environment of _Normandy's_ med-bay was the presence of a bald human clergyman. Miranda gave a momentary glance to her asari guards but they were less than forthcoming. Her puzzled expression had obviously translated to the man in question because he answered when he saw her quizzical look.

"I am Father Genativii," he touched his hand to over to his left breast and gave a very slight benevolent bow as was customary of one of the religious order. "Apart from my duties as a clergy of human theology, I am also a credited councilor, one of three aboard the _Normandy_. In this circumstance I am to serve as your advocate to ensure your proper treatment and to see that your rights as a prisoner of war are duly upheld in accordance to the Citadel Regulations as well as Earth's own New Geneva Convention."

"You expect me to believe a Council Spectre will uphold the New Geneva Convention?" Miranda answered the clergyman's explanation with a tone of cold disdainful resentment and petulant willful disbelief.

It wasn't Father Genativii who gave a rebuttal but the white haired physician. "Commander Shepard is a Spectre Agent and a _human_, who has a very high respect for laws and regulations. More than that she believes in them. Her crew follows her lead. If they don't they don't stay on her crew long." Blue eyes scolded Miranda for her outburst which she clearly saw as uncontrolled and undeserving. "I am Dr. Chakwas: Chief Medical Officer of the _Normandy._ Now we will proceed with a full medical examination. I have a few routine questions I need you to answer fully and truthfully."

Miranda was handed an exam gown, the sort that tied around the neck and opened in the back. She was given leave to strip behind a holographic privacy curtain but not without Aleena accompanying her. As soon as she disrobed one of the nursing staff confiscated the formfitting armored unitard before passing it to one of the commandos.

The few hours Lawson spent in the med-bay seemed like days. The questions were exceedingly boring and routine as was the full-physical which was exactly like those she was required to submit to yearly from Cerberus medical. Truth-be-told it was the same exam any soldier was ordered to submit to during their term of service within the military. The whole affair was more of a pain in the ass than anything and filled with annoying, if not slightly uncomfortable, personal questions and examinations.

Name: Miranda Yvonne Lawson: Earthborn, Australian. Born in 2150: aged thirty-four. Height: 1.524 meters, weight: eight stone (or around 50.80 kilograms.)

Was she allergic to any medications, any antibiotics or food? Was she addicted to any legal or illegal substances? As her incarceration would most likely be lengthy, a forced detox would be a problematic and if not properly handled, it could lead to further medical detriment.

No, she did not have a family history of medical issues like cancer, heart disease, or any other debilitating conditions. No, she wasn't allergic to anything. No, she wasn't an addict. Yes, her menstruation cycle was regular and no there were no overly painful cramping sensations during it. Yes, her bowel movements were regular as well. No, she wasn't currently sexually active, no she didn't have any STDs nor had she ever contracted any. No, she had never terminated or miscarried a pregnancy or in fact been pregnant. Her eyes betrayed the pain within her that she could never bear a child. How ironic that because of her father's obsession with his dynasty and perfection, he perfected his daughter out of continuing the line. This, of course, the operative kept from Chakwas. Miranda forcefully shoved the sting away from her mind and focused her attention on the questions that were asked of her.

No, she didn't have any issues with her biotic implants and amp other than the occasional static shock discharge common to all non-asari biotics. No, she didn't suffer migraines but yes, if she didn't consume the typical high caloric diet of a biotic she did become terse and had the symptoms of someone with hypoglycemia. Which again was fairly typical with biotics.

Yes, she was feeling a bit nauseous because of the neurocollar that replaced the amp at the base of her skull but that was to be expected. While the neurocollar assisted in regulating the biotic implants and stabilized them so there wouldn't be flare-ups, it also damped them to such a level it made Miranda feel partially lethargic which was the point. How else could you confine someone biotic with abilities?

You could take the amp away but the sub-dermal nerve-cluster implants remained and so did the capabilities. For the purpose of incarcerating biotic fugitives new technology had to be innovated and implemented. And the asari had found a way to monitor and control the biotics of others. They had created the neurocollar. Other security firms had created their own methods, some more effective than others. Cerberus itself had created a drug to use against multiple biotic combatants but while it was immensely effective (especially against asari) in the battle field, in the incarceration business it was impractical. Leave it to the _blues_ to create a method to control and nullify both natural and implanted biotics.

The asari of course didn't need the implants as their nervous systems were already highly attuned to element zero's dark energy, but they did use bio-amps. In fact they made the highest quality bio-amps in the galaxy. Something the Illusive Man was keen on surpassing for Cerberus's biotic agents. One of his pet projects was the production of what he called the Phantom and Nemesis warriors. They were the means to this end.

Lawson's amp had, of obviously, been confiscated by Aleena beforehand and surrendered to Doctor Chakwas for examination. After which it would then be placed in a highly secure evidence locker in the custody of _Normandy's_ chief security officer. Lawson's bio-amp was a heavily modified Serrice Council L4 hyper amp, which increased the power of her offensive attacks by at least ten percent above the average Savant model bio-amp. It also had a neural mask that provided her with a twenty percent increase in her power duration and the smart amplifier allowed for a swifter cool down rate. In fact it was almost (though not quite) equal to Shepard's own L5 bio-amp.

As per standard procedure during the regular exam, the operative was given privacy with only Chakwas administering. The physician was as professional, courteous and respectful as if she was seeing to a female member of her own crew. Lawson admitted grudgingly that she was due for those tests anyway. If she was allowed to leave, (a fact Miranda very much doubted) she might attempt to convince Shepard to give her an ODS with the results so she could transfer them to Cerberus Medical. It'd be nice not to have to do the whole bloody thing all over again. At least the breast exam wasn't the archaic medieval torture her forebears back in the twentieth century had to suffer.

Now came the more invasive questions and examinations. The air in the med-bay seemed to shift to an almost static surge of concern as to how Lawson was going to respond to being questioned and what the answers to those questions were going to be. One of the reasons that Miranda felt so unnerved at this part of the examination was that another doctor was brought in: a salarian named Dr. Mordin Solus.

He was typical of his species, gangrel with large amphibious almost insectiod eyes. His face was well lived and had seen several battles. No doubt it was during one such confrontation that he had earned the large 'X' shaped scar on what was the equivalent of a salarian cheek, as well as missing one of the horn like appendages on the top of his head. Though it gave him a rather lopsided appearance, it also added a fierceness to a species Miranda had never seen as intimidating. Taking in the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth Lawson gauged that Dr Solus was quite advanced in his years, but it was difficult to say. She was never good at judging the ages of aliens.

"Please take a seat on the bed." The white-haired human physician pointed to the bio-bed directly behind the operative's left shoulder. Once Lawson sat as directed the doctor continued speaking. "Due to the nature of Cerberus methods of ensuring its operatives do not succumb to interrogation, you, Miss Lawson, will be placed under sedation." Dr. Chakwas said. "Your advocate will bear witness to ensure that your rights as a sentient are not violated. Dr. S'thasa, if you will? "

"Of course, Doctor." Aleena responded in an equally professional tone.

Before she could even turn to the new speaker, Miranda felt the now familiar tingling, if not stifling hold, of a _stasis bubble_ envelop her body. It rendered her immobile, more than that it was as if her whole body seized tight. Her hands clenched the side of the bed causing her knuckles to become bone white against her perfectly tanned flesh. Every single muscle cramped causing the pain of a dozen different charley-horses to simultaneously attack her body like a ravaging disease.

"May I ask why you did that Dr. S'thasa?" Genativii turned on the emerald skinned asari. Apparently not everyone knew who this huntress truly was. Doctor... indeed. "That seems quite over the top, even for an agent of the enemy."

Chakwas administered a mild sedative, which did little to relax the operative's muscles until Aleena lifted the _stasis field_. At which time Miranda's entire body went slack and was caught by the elder woman and gently laid back down on the bed's less than comfortable leathered surface

"Wise precaution. For her. For us." Mordin answered for the commando medic. "Cerberus operatives known to have cyanide capsules hidden in molars. Avoid interrogation by way of suicide. This way prisoner unable to move, unable to deploy use of suicide."

A glimmer of disgust filtered in the clergy man's eyes at the mention of suicide as he spoke. "I see... Very well carry on then. But I must ask, why not use sedation during the first part of Miss Lawson's examination?"

"It wasn't necessary Father Genativii." answered Dr. Chakwas. "She would not have perceived the exam or the questions as a threat to Cerberus."

"And you know for a fact that she might commit suicide for this next part of the examination?" The lanky clergyman gave Miranda a look that would be better suited for a court appointed public defender than a man-of-the-cloth

Her body numb and her mind groggy because of the sedative, Lawson listened with some interest. The operative was more than a little intrigued how Shepard's people would justify their actions.

"In the past when Cerberus Agents were apprehended they used several methods to avoid interrogation." the human doctor said. "Cyanide, death by rushing the guards, one man even slit his own throat with an antique pen-knife he managed to conceal in his rectum. And there was a woman who, rather than submit to questioning, rushed the wall of her cell with enough speed and force that the ensuing damage did more than give her a concussion, it gave her significant brain damage so she was unable to answer even the simplest of questions, even her own name."

"All unnecessary. More efficient and effective to have small explosive device implanted in cranium. Activated by frequency of a bio-scan. Take out captured operative and interrogators at the same time." Mordin piped in.

"Try not to give the enemy ideas, will you Professor?" Aleena quipped. "Strategically speaking it's not a very good idea."

"Ah. Yes. Apologies."

The professor's words however did have a rather profound effect on the occupants in the sickbay. More than a few of the accompanying commandos half expected Miranda's head to explode in the next breath. Even the good Father took a step back from his client with a wary gaze of apprehension and trepidation that had not been there before.

"Oh, for crying out loud." Chakwas grumbled as she ran her medical issue omni-tool over Lawson's head which was still pillowed on the headrest. "Had she such a device implanted in her skull it would have already alerted me from the first time I ran a scan over her. Honestly!" Her usual tempered upper-class London accent became clipped and as stern as any nineteenth century governess. "However that doesn't mean the prisoner hasn't been preconditioned to use other means of self-harm and mutilation to avoid questioning."

One of the younger commandos muttered under her breath. "Would that be so bad? One less xenophobe in the world. Galaxy's better for it. I say let her kill herself if she wants to."

"Yes and where would that leave Agent Shepard?" another retorted. "Without answers as to what Cerberus wants with her."

"That's an easy answer Naga'sadow. Dead. They want Shepard dead because she married one of us. Adopted our religion. Attempted to have a child with one of us. Unforgivable sins in their eyes. Then they made sure her daughter was slaughtered and made a damn fine attempt at doing the same to Dr. T'Soni! Cerberus despises anyone not human! Any human in a personal relationship with another species is considered a race traitor. They consider Shepard the biggest race traitor of them all. Isn't that right you bitch!?" the young woman growled.

"Corporal Handir! Mind your conduct, please!" Genativii reprimanded the highly agitated asari. "May I remind you, Miss Lawson is a prisoner of war not a deranged psychopath or a sociopath running amok with guns a blazing or flinging biotic powers mindlessly. Whether or not she _personally_ committed any war crimes has yet to come to light. For now we know only she is part of a criminal organization."

"Yes and according to Citadel law, that is a capital offence." Handir snarled back.

"If there is to be any sentencing of that law, Corporal, it will not come from you. It will come from either the Spectre or the Council itself." Genativii headily argued back. "I am not very fond of Cerberus. In fact I have more reason to hate them than you. My youngest son died on Akuze. If you know anything about that, then you know that a trap was deliberately set in a thresher maw nest by Cerberus. They wanted to see what thresher venom did to the human body.

"My godson, who was also there, was the only survivor of that fiasco. Cerberus doctors took him prisoner and performed horrible experiments on him...they tortured him. He will be forever scarred by that. He will never fully recover from what Cerberus and the threshers did to him. He still hears the screaming. And I weep for him because I cannot help him. But I will respect the law on this ship and so will you."

Many eyes, including Miranda's medically-induced groggy blues, stared at the man and his outspoken proclamation, all of them clearly shocked by the revelation. Apparently not even Chakwas had been aware of the priest's past. Miranda looked away, her hand unconsciously scratching the spot just below her left clavicle. She hadn't personally been involved with that operation not really. But it had been her algorithm within the faked distress call that had caused the Alliance to believe it was genuine and go in and hit dirt. She tried to argue with herself that back then she hadn't known that it was anything more than a challenge - a test of her skills from the Illusive Man. She wrote the protocols that circumnavigated Alliance comm-system firewalls when she was a part of Cerberus's cyber-warfare division.

The operative had been so young at the time, so eager to prove herself, that she had not questioned the directives given to her by the Illusive Man. Miranda prided herself on being his favored protégée, his most trusted operative, even above Kai Leng. So desperate to prove she was better than the assassin that Miranda started to developed programs, initiatives and concepts to further Cerberus long term goal of humanity's advancement. She had become the Illusive Man's personal go-to-woman. No question.

Akuze wasn't just set up to bait and kill Alliance soldiers. _Human_ soldiers. There was an objective to Project Hydra to study and adapt the abilities of the dreaded thresher maw and to nullify its venomous attacks when deployed. It had paid off. Maybe the Alliance didn't know or didn't care one way or the other that it was Cerberus, not their military-techs that derived the toxin-based ammo many troopers favored. Or that many of the anti-toxin mods for the hardsuits came from what Cerberus scientists and doctors had uncovered via Project Hydra. Yes, the tech _officially_ came from Hahne-Kedar, but that company was owned and operated by Cerberus employees whether they knew it or not. Indeed it had been started by the Illusive Man himself under yet another alias.

Yes, admittedly a few soldiers died on Akuze, but some sacrifices are absolutely and tragically necessary to ensure humanity stays strong. Sometimes hard lines must be drawn so that humanity advances and is not overcome by the shinny newness of alien races. The deaths of those brave Alliance men and women were for the greater good of all humanity. Did not the Alliance, and hell, even some of the other races, reap the benefits from what was uncovered at Project Hydra and many projects Cerberus initiated? How arrogant, how convenient a double-standard and how two-faced these Alliance types and their so called alien allies have become!

As Miranda Lawson's bio-metric x-rays and more in-depth exams were about to begin, they were suddenly interrupted and abruptly shoved aside as a barrage of noise and action assaulted the once tense med-bay in a cacophony of chaos.

Every head turned, snapping away from Lawson to the new comers.

Sandwiched between Shepard and Zaeed and laid upon a stretcher was Garrus Vakarian. The right side of his face all but a semblance of what it once was. Blue blood pooled around his head, a constant drip upon the metal floor. His breath was labored and painful. It was providence's own luck there was no cerulean froth coming from his mouth, which would have meant a perforated lung.

Scrambling frantically on the tail of the would-be orderlies flew Tali, Liara and Williams, the former obviously in great distress. The whole of her environmental suit coated in azure blood. "No. No. No. No. No." The one word continuously poured from her. Nearly all her slight weight was supported by Liara.

"My God!" Chakwas exclaimed. "Quickly get him to the bio-bed. All non-essential personnel—out!"

"He took heavy fire from the gunship. A rocket grazed him." Shepard delivered the SitRep. "We stabilized him with seven medigel applications. But he's lost too much blood."

"Understood. Thank you. Now get out. All of you save for you Dr. S'thasa. We're going to need your help." Chakwas ordered.

"I lend my aid as well." Mordin pitched, he was only given a nod by the silver-haired woman as everyone else filed out of the med-bay.

"No! I want to stay!" Tali screamed, but her protest was cut short by Shepard's presence. She took a firm hand and guided the distraught quarian out of the sickbay.

"Garrus is in good hands. Dr. Chakwas knows what she is doing." the same words were once quoted to Liara nearly two years before. They were as valid now as they were when first spoken. "She put me back together again; saved Liara's life, and she will do the same for Garrus." The Spectre's tone was soothing as if to quiet a terrified child from night terrors. "Come on, we have to get out of her hair and let her get on with saving Garrus." her voice still gentle but becoming more firm. "Come Tali." with a gentle but firm final push the Spectre escorted the younger woman out the door.

"Naga'sadow, Handir," Williams addressed the huntresses, taking over the more administrative duties, "secure the prisoner in the brig."

"Aye aye." Naga'sadow answered, turning to the operative, the tone of her aloof voice containing such a chill one might have become frostbitten. "Let's make this nice and easy Lawson."

For a brief moment the operative thought to demand to see her sister. To ensure Oriana's safety, but sophistication and forethought gave Miranda wisdom enough to keep her teeth together. Now wasn't the ideal time to force the issue of the terms of her surrender that hadn't even been negotiated. However there was perhaps one maneuver the operative might be able to use to ensure certain pieces on the board moved to her liking. And it may yet take some of the bite out of the Spectre's wrath.

"I wish your man well, Shepard."

The small nod of the dark head was more than a simple acknowledgment of the words spoken to her; it was a sign, however minute, of her gratitude. The unvarnished truth was that it was as much a shock to the operative as it was to Shepard that she actually meant the words.

Marched along the corridor back to the central lift, Miranda looked at the crew as she passed. Faces: human, turian, salarian, asari and volus all returning her stare with mixtures of suspicion, distaste and, oddly enough, some even reflected admiration for the operative's submission and the bravery it took to do so. The proud do not often bend a willing knee.

One face amongst the humans and asari was familiar. Miranda gasped for it was her face, fifteen years ago. "Oriana!" she could not help but call out the name of her sister.

The girl turned as any who hear their name in a crowded room. The moment she saw Miranda she shrank back, a young asari looked to her then to Miranda, her blue eyes became an odd fusion of protectiveness and distrust at the same time. The operative was left standing as the asari escorting Oriana, touched her sister's arm with friendly fingers, and led her away. Not so friendly were those that grasped her arm and pulled her to the lift that ultimately led to her incarceration. Miranda consoled herself that at the very least she saw Oriana. She was in fair condition or so it seemed, not a prisoner lingering away in the brig as Lawson had first feared.

Haunting words slipped in Miranda's memory. '_If I were Shepard, and had it been my daughter executed, I would not have bothered with such an elaborate scheme to trap you. I would have allowed you to walk through the doors of my dominion. I would have allowed you a single glimpse of your sister just before I snuffed out her life, making you stand helpless and impotent to stop her blood from spilling.'_

Was Lawson meant to catch that cruel sliver of hope? Was she meant to glimpse Oriana before her life was snuffed out as the Shepard-T'Soni child had been? Was Shepard giving her a glance, a single glimpse of her sister before her life was erased from existence?

No. From what she saw of Shepard in the last few moments, Oriana would not be so cruelly used. Nor would Miranda ever allow it. She would do anything to save her sister, up to, and including, sacrificing her own life. They would burn if they dare even try.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Tali padded after her commander, more guided by her than following her. "We waited for you in the mess." the quarian's voice sounded meek, listless as if there was no life in the body that uttered them. She of course was referencing the time after a piece of Sovereign's hull had crashed through the Citadel tower windows and landed on Shepard, nearly killing her.

"I know." Shepard turned her hand, touching the soft fabric of the veil that covered Tali's helmet. It was the red and black swirled pattern of the Colossus armor she had given the engineer during their fight against Saren. Goddess that was a life time ago. "But you took care of yourselves, didn't you." It wasn't a question, it was a statement. "Tali, your suit... it needs tending to." She had almost said it was coated in blood but refrained from saying such knowing how detrimental it would be to the young woman's fragile emotional state.

"I want you to reclaim the Kestrel model from Lt. Nual. I know you prefer the Colossus, more I think out of sentimentality than its performance. I appreciate the thought but you know as well as I do that the Kestrel is far superior. Hell, you implemented some of the upgrades yourself." Sam placed her hand under the quarian's helmeted chin and lifted the girl's head. "It's why Garrus is still alive. He was wearing the upgraded model you, Nual and Ash worked on."

It had taken months for the new upgrades to go from the development stage to practical use. First Shepard and Liara's armor were developed, then the rest of the flagship ground team. Regardless of the expense, those upgrades were given to the rest of _Normandy's_ mobile infantry and flight squad.

The armor was truly innovative, with the spinal-mount processor synchronizing artificial torso muscle fibers with limb movements in the cuirass, allowing power to be generated by the legs, channeled through the core, and projected out through the arms. Auto-targeting was assisted by the stabilization of the firing platform. Kinetic barriers were powered by waist-mounted capacitors. The greaves had hip mounted power packs which provided emergency energy for kinetic barriers and heavy weapons.

The pauldron were also heavily recalibrated with backup capacitors for shield generation. Artificial muscle fibers based on spider silk which reinforced the shoulders, allowing for more powerful movements. It increased the power by ten percent. Even non biotics could deliver one hell of a melee attack using the new pneumatic power. The potency of the artificial muscle fibers within the gauntlets were just as equally innovative. Just like everything else, they were controlled by the armor system's central processor allowing for both gross motor movements and precision support of the hands. This steadied aim in a manner compatible with most firearm auto-targeting systems. Additional capacitors for shield generation were installed on the ulnar side of the forearm.

The armor was environmentally sealed with an independent air supply for use in space and extreme planetary conditions, with an onboard "micro-frame" computer capable of running a suite of battle management software. To prevent detection by passive thermal sensors, body heat was channeled to the soles of the feet, where it could be dispersed into the ground.

Tali recalled how utterly proud she had been in designing the VI tech which was dedicated to recognizing signs of stress and medical trauma. The armor's microframe computer also managed biotic amp and omni-tool power, and microservers helped the wearer's movements to counteract the armor's weight.

While the armor the quarian wore now housed many of the very same upgrades, it was not of the quality the Kestrel was. The only reason Tali insisted on wearing the Colossus was because Shepard had given it to her just after the incident with the batarians on the Terra Nova asteroid X57.

Simon Atwall offered a gift of gratitude which he insisted on giving the commander. Shepard could have easily asked for the superior omni-tool the chief engineer had, instead the Spectre had asked for the quarian armor. Atwall only had it on the asteroid base because there had been a couple of quarian pilgrims who had been on Terra Nova for a while, one of which had a spare suit and apparently had left it behind. With no way of returning the suit to her, Atwall had kept it in storage. Fortunately it was designed for a woman and fitted Tali as if tailor made for her. Since she had been given it by Shepard, Tali was hesitant to shed it. It was prized and special to her.

Only the blackness of her armor hid the blue stains of Garrus's blood. It left purple splotches on the red fabric that skirted low on her hips. Even if she managed to get it cleaned the memory of the stain would forever linger and torment her. She understood why Shepard was urging her to change suits.

Tali had to admit she liked the look of her newer armor. It was black, dark blue with accents of gold and her favorite color purple. And unlike the Colossus, it had both a casual feel to it as well as martial. For the latter she had the upgraded greaves, pauldrons, gauntlets and boots, with a purple leg band that wrapped around her right thigh. The hood was black and gold, reinforced with the same material that lined Liara's white and gray pinstriped highway man's coat. They attached and reattached to the environmental suit's underlay at will, as did the breastplates' reinforced plating.

The former casual look had more purple and had a softer appearance with two purple leg bands and a low hip sash which highly accentuated her femininity. The hood covering her helmet was fully purple and billowed more about the shoulders, which were covered in a sheer purple halter. Again, they were made of the same durable armored cloth but had a far less militant quality to them than the armored variety.

"The research lab's clean room is free. Go in there, use the showering facilities and get into the new suit. Once you are done go to the mess hall and get something to eat. No arguments, Tali. No protests. I'd order you to bed but I know that won't happen." There was a tender kindness to the Spectre's voice. "I know this fear, this worry you have, Tali. The man you love is in the best possible care. Garrus is tough, he'll pull through. And he now has someone to pull through for. He won't give up the fight."

"Shep..." Tali's voice wavered, hanging in the air. She sprinted the three steps into her Commander's arms, the strength seeping out of her at each passing breath. Sam wrapped her arms around Tali's slighter frame and held her tightly.

"Hey, hey." Sam cooed. "It's going to be okay, I promise you, it's going to be alright."

Tali pressed her body closer to Sam's, drawing in the security and comfort offered her. She trusted the words she heard as if they were religious text of the Ancestors. Once given, Shepard never broke her word to her crew. She never gave false hopes, only the courage to believe in true hope and possibility. She gave her people belief when there was no hope of success.

"I... I am sorry I... fell apart" Tali pushed away slightly from the arms holding her, embarrassed to have broken down in front of one of the women she admired most.

"Tali you have nothing to be sorry about. Nothing at all." There was something in the Spectre's voice that clearly hinted that she felt the guilt for Garrus' condition lay solely at her own feet.

There were times when you had to hit the human over the head with the figurative clue-by-four and get her to see reason from a clearer point of view. Sometimes however such action was not only fruitless but futile. Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_ found herself rather perplexed as to what occasion this instance was

Instead of attempting to convince the commander that guilt was not hers to bear, Tali opted for a diversionary tactic. "I think I'll go take my shower." she said with a sigh. "It will actually feel good to feel water against my skin rather than relying on my suit's internal systems to cleanse my body."

Shepard smiled at that. "Good to hear." the Spectre displayed a playful disarming smirk. "Of course we're going to have to find a way for Garrus to join you in one of those showers."

"Shepard!" Tali smacked the human on the arm hard enough that had she not been still in her armor there would have been a bruise forming. Then a more shy voice uttered. "Do... do um... you think... er... it can be done?"

Shepard threw her head back and laughed, "Let me see? We have Professor Mordin Solus on board- an expert on xenobiology, the ever talented Dr. Chakwas and a secret hopeless romantic like Aleena on the case... yeah I think it's possible." A wider lopsided grin spread on the older woman's face. "Very possible."

"Even if I became a little sick it'd be totally worth it." Tali said almost to herself.

Shepard clapped a hand on Tali's shoulder and gave a very slightly smile. Her intention had been to divert the young woman's pain, fear and worry and convert it into hope, into something to believe in. And she recognized the double-play in the quarian's own maneuvering to distract the Spectre from her own haunting thoughts that stalked her upon heavy feet.

Heavier still, and a greater haunting, were words written centuries ago. Words Shepard had committed herself to study and discipline herself to, words quoted by the entity that called itself Wizard. Words the Spectre dare not trespass against.

"… _therefore it is said that enlightened rulers deliberate upon the plans, and good generals execute them. If not in the interests of the State, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight. A sovereign cannot raise an army because he is enraged, nor can a general fight because he is resentful. For while an angered man may again be happy, and a resentful man again be pleased, a State that has perished cannot be restored, nor the dead be brought back to life. Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent and the good general warned against rash action. Thus the State is kept secure and the army preserved."_

Yet Shepard had raised an army whilst enraged, fought while resentful. Contrariwise her actions were not in full against the _State_. For the tides of bounty hunters had to be levied least they flood the truer purpose set by the Spectre's mission to stop Reapers and put an end to their cycles of relentless harvesting.

The thought turned the Sam on to other more pressing matters.

A greater army needed to be raised to face the hordes. And therein lay the problem. The Reapers had the dragon teeth, the horrific monstrous devices that turned dying organics into husks. Shepard was more than positive the dragon teeth were not an invention of the geth, but something Sovereign gave the quarian made machines.

Thus far the crew of the _Normandy_ had only faced those of human origin. But what if those horrors were born of other species? Would the creatures made out of asari still have biotics? More than likely. What of the krogan or vorcha? Surely they would still retain the ability to regenerate swiftly, still retain the blood rage and rampaging charges. But of turian, drell or batarians, what would they become? What the hell would an elcor or a hanar be turned into, never mind the rachni. Surely the quarians with their weakened immune systems would not be made into a husk-creature. For once the great frailty of the quarian people would be their salvation. How ironic!

As Shepard prowled the corridors of her ship, her mind continued to wind back to the Reaper abominations. The damned machines would never run out of disposable foot soldiers. As long as organics struggled to live the Reapers had limitless minions to throw back at their enemy. In a terrifying way it was horrendously brilliant move on the part of the sentient machines. For the price of one, the Resistance lost two soldiers: The one turned into a Reaper minion and the other hesitant to shoot at a friend, a family member.

There was nothing left of the human in the husk save for the perversion of its shape. In the war to come, warriors and soldiers must be made to see past what they knew the person to be - to the creatures their friends their families became and shoot to kill. It would be the only way to survive, the only way to free the abhorrent monsters from a fate far worse than death. The husk creatures were a synthesis of the worst possible kind - the blend of organic and synthetic, was a mockery of life, of creation. As much as the statement was an oxymoron, the birth of such was a pure abomination.

_If ever I am captured I want whoever is there to put a cap in my head. I sure as hell don't want to become one of those… things._ The Spectre shuddered involuntarily at the thought of her body impaled on the dragon teeth. Only to be released as a slathering mindless zombie that turned on her loved ones, her friends and squad mates.

Of course those thoughts brought the Spectre back around to the whole issue of dragon teeth. With no proof, which the Council would insist she have, they would never believe Shepard if she said the monstrous spikes were not of geth origin but Reaper. So far 'I saw it in a vision' hadn't done her any favors. And saying she saw them in the memories of a dead Prothean woman definitely would not go over well.

There was a chance, however small, that she could convince Aria T'Loak to listen to her, to believe her. If she could get the Pirate Queen on her side Shepard felt it in her gut that Tevos would follow suit. And if she did, Thessia would and if Thessia did, Earth would. At least that was the theory Shepard was betting on. A safe enough wager if Aleena was brought in on the sit down to reaffirm everything the Spectre was saying to be true.

The long shot wasn't T'Loak, it was Lawson. Getting her to admit the crimes Cerberus committed was going to be like pulling the saber teeth from a varran without a set of pliers and whilst wearing blood soaked BDUs. Gaining useful Intel to use against the criminal organization was going to be harder still.

Again, the play on the board involved a sister. But this pawn Shepard was more reluctant to maneuver on the game board. She had disrupted the kid's life enough as it was, gave her a vision of a nightmare Oriana would never forget and it had forever altered her perception of her elder sister.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Miranda watched the changing of the guard with mild interest. There were always six asari huntresses, two of them sported full faced helmets. They watched her, perhaps waiting for her to make some kind of attempt of escape or some kind of retaliation. She'd not give them the satisfaction.

"Come to stare at the Cerberus _bitch_ have we?" Miranda challenged, causing the woman to shrink back towards the door. She snorted. Precocious little blue chits, always acting so superior to everyone else. Lawson always loved seeing them taken down a few pegs; the only thing better was besting the turians in martial skills and shoving their arrogance down their skull faces.

The operative fell back against her bunk and sat down. She'd not give her jailors the satisfaction of seeing her shrink before them. Her eyes never left the helmeted figures, she returned stare for stare. What did they think to intimidate her, unnerve her by concealing their faces? Such a tactic might have worked against a lesser mind, but not hers.

She sat and waited.

Shepard was bound to come sooner or later.

In fact it was much, much later before the Spectre made her appearance. Preceding her were two human guards, a blonde male carrying what looked to be folding card table and the other, a redheaded woman, carrying a chair. Once they performed their duties they retreated back out the door.

Almost on cue, Shepard slipped in with the economic movements of a predator comfortable in her surroundings. In her hands she carried two mess trays on top which were two blue foil packs and two plastic bottles of water.

"I imagine by now you're famished." the Spectre said in an even tone.

"MREs?" Miranda looked to the blue foil pouches. "Really? You are going to feed me MREs?" Her voice rose in pitch.

"Would you rather trust a tray of food from the mess? You have to eat something; I don't care what you shovel down." Shepard challenged. "Mess Sergeant Rupert is serving some sort of calamari gumbo. It's pretty tasty. It can be arranged if you prefer."

Miranda shook her head, the dark locks falling about her shoulders like cascading waterfall. "Not presently no."

"I didn't think so. Not that I'd trust any food given to me by you if our positions were reversed. So MREs it is. Rule of thumb, eat now, taste it later." Shepard held up both in her left hand as her right held the two bottles of water. The later she placed on the floor in front of her boots. "I grabbed two packs from field rations. Didn't actually look at what I picked up. Let's see what we have." She turned the packs over in her hands and read aloud their labels. "Looks like we have beef ravioli or a chicken fajita. Which do you want?"

"And what if I said I was a vegetarian." Lawson quibbled.

"I'd say don't eat the main." Shepard answered.

Miranda shouldn't have expected any other kind of answer. Shepard had such an inappropriate glib levity at times. She sighed, well there was nothing for it but to answer back. "What's in the ravioli pack?"

"Let's see…" Shepard looked at the table of contents: "Beef ravioli, toaster pastry, cookies, cheese spread, jalapeno crackers, vegetable beef snacks, a high carb-electro beverage. Hot sauce-if you're lucky both red and green Tabasco and coffee, creamer, artificial sweetener, salt and pepper, chewing gum, and matches. I think I'll confiscate both of those, but you can keep the toilet tissue and the moist towelette." Shepard smirked.

"Then there's the other choice. Chicken fajita, cheese spread, tortillas, Mexican rice, baked snack crackers." Shepard rolled her eyes and in a mocking tone added "Muumm baked snack crackers… tasty. A spice pack- in other words salt and pepper and maybe paprika. Actually the beverages aren't half bad. Irish cream cappuccino, non-alcoholic apple cider, and the other amenities. Which again, I will confiscate the gum and matches. Can't have you starting any fires or causing any sort of MacGyvered mischief with chewing gum and the heating pack. You understand."

"Of course." Lawson responded evenly. "I'm not a massive fan of the military's version of Mexican cuisine. I'll go with the ravioli. That at least seems mildly palatable."

"Fair enough." Shepard opened the preferred pack in full view of Lawson then methodically began separating each course into the segregated sections of the tray.

_So we're a little OCD._ Miranda mused. To be fair most military types had a bit of that tick in them. She knew from Cerberus's own troopers that some of them, when it came to food, either slopped everything they could on the tray not caring if it was all mix-mashed together, while others depended on the segregated slots to ensure each food item was properly contained and isolated and never touching. Of course the latter tended to be officers and had the affordability and luxury of not being forced into the 'eat now and taste it later' philosophy.

"Since you're confiscating things, take the bloody coffee while you're at it. I prefer tea." the Australian scowled.

"You have an awfully strong opinion of coffee." Shepard jibed handing Miranda her tray through a slot in the bars of the cell. "Did it somehow offend you when you were little or something?"

"I simply find it unpleasant." Miranda didn't say it was the uncultured drink of the masses. That would not go down well considering the Spectre was an obvious fan of cappuccino. She probably favored lattés too. Lawson should be generous with the space born vagabond. After all, what could you expect from a woman who grew up with no true solid family life, always on the move? Of course Shepard favored coffee. It was the navy's go-juice.

Hell the woman probably wouldn't know a three-star Michelin restaurant if she saw one, let alone how to eat in one, despite the refinery of her wife's background. T'Soni's elegance obviously didn't translate across their bond. Just look at the way Shepard sat! It was almost masculine. The operative supposed the 'technical' term was butch and definitely pure military. Shepard didn't know anything else. How could she? She was born from a soldier's womb, sired by a soldier's seed and lived her entire life as one even before she enlisted. Hell, Shepard wasn't covered in placenta when she was pushed from her mother's body; she was born wearing a set of N7 BDU onesies complete with the red honor strip running the length of her pampers.

Despite the methodical way Shepard prepared the MRE on the tray, she didn't seem to have an issue on how she dug into her food. Or at least there was no discernible pattern to it that Miranda could see. Shepard took a few bites of her main before biting into one of the other courses. It took a moment for the operative to realize the Spectre was actually eating in accordance to the hierarchy of the nutritional pyramid: dessert, meat, dairy, veg/fruit, carbs. Shepard was actually eating by rank! Lawson wondered if the other woman was fully aware of how she was eating or if it was such a habit by now that it wasn't even a second thought.

Shepard also ate very quickly: conditioned behavior no doubt due to her militaristic upbringing and years of service. Once more she obviously expected Lawson to do the same. Best not disappoint her.

"What is Cerberus's long term goal?" Shepard asked suddenly in a conversational tone.

It actually took Lawson by surprise but she mastered her unnerved thoughts and settled herself to answering succinctly. "The advancement of the human race, nothing more nothing less. The salarians have their Special Tasks Group. The asari have their legendary commandos with delta recon operations. Cerberus is humanity's answer to those organizations."

"But those organizations are regulated by governments. Who keeps Cerberus in check?"

"Nobody. We're privately funded. And our backers trust the Illusive Man to make the right decisions. But he is very clear about our goals. Protect humanity and Cerberus advancement."

Shepard thought for a moment, seemingly chewing over Miranda's words as she was the food in her mouth. Swallowing the rice she asked. "Are you military or political? Or both?"

"Cerberus has several divisions. Military, political and scientific. But we are working towards the same goal. The teams you encountered before… Dr. T'Soni's _accident_, were mostly part of our military division. But not all Cerberus operations use the same protocols. We try not to get bogged down in bureaucracy or formality."

Again Shepard paused to think before continuing her line of questions. "What kind of funding does Cerberus have?"

"We're very well funded. Though I doubt anyone but the Illusive Man knows exactly how well. But our resources aren't limitless. That being said, some operations take significant investments and significant risks. If you were to join us we could provide you with resources the Council or the Alliance cannot or will not offer. We want the same things as you: To stop the Reapers, and here and now the Collectors. You're facing the impossible Shepard. We can help you, we want to help you."

Shepard's eyebrows knitted together, a frown etched its way onto her angular face as if chiseled there. Ignoring the weak attempt at recruiting, the Spectre continued her interrogation. "What can you tell me about the Illusive Man?"

"Not much that you don't already know. Even I don't have access to most of his background. It is rare for him to become directly involved in the operations of a mission. But you are something special. Whatever else people might say about him, I can assure you he has humanity's best interest at heart. That includes you and me."

"Phft. How can you be sure of that if you know so little about him?"

"I didn't get to where I am without being able to gauge people's motives and ambitions even from brief encounters. He's no saint and he'd be the first to admit it. But he is committed. Humanity couldn't have a better advocate."

Miranda knew Shepard didn't believe her, not that she blamed the other woman but if there was a chance to keep this open dialog going then there was a chance to take the blinders off the Spectre and allow her to see Cerberus for what it truly was. What it truly stood for. Miranda knew forcing Shepard's hand in the manner the Illusive Man had played wasn't the right course. Yes her boss had to take a proactive measure to clean up what that fool Udina had done, and it might have been the correct one if Shepard had more of a renegade nature in her.

Samantha Shepard was a blunt woman but you don't use a blunt instrument to lever someone like her to your side - you entice with ideals of honor, justice and her natural instinct to protect. Lawson saw a chance to fix the errors that had been done in the past few months. She had never been this open with anyone before; never spoke as an equal to another but was willing to take the chance with Shepard, even if in her heart she didn't truly believe the Spectre was her true equal.

The food on her tray gone, Shepard stood up turned and departed saying nothing more.

"Wait! My sister. I want to see her."

Pausing to look at the two helmeted guards Shepard answered with: "Perhaps tomorrow." Then she was out the door.

The same human guards that had set up the table and chair came in and cleared them, confiscating Miranda's tray and plastic spork and retreated, taking the table and chair with them. And thus a routine was set.

Day by day Shepard would come in following the guards after they set the table and chair up. As before, the Spectre gave Miranda a choice of MRE packs and then set about preparing it. After she laid out her own meal the questions would begin. Once more the tone of the interrogation was more conversational rather than confrontational.

"Tell me about yourself, Miranda." Shepard said before biting into her spaghetti, her choice of meal for the day as Lawson was dining on lasagna.

"Oh, I guess that's fair given I spent the last few months learning everything I could about you. You probably already know about my extensive genetic modifications. Not my decision but I make the most of it. It's one of the reason's the Illusive Man handpicked me. I am very good at just about anything I choose to do."

"Hmm. You certainly don't lack in confidence." Shepard retorted.

Equally as dismissive though very cocky about it Miranda said. "It's just a fact. My reflexes, my strength, even my looks. They are all designed to give me an edge. No point in hiding from it. It's the reason I'm trusted to oversee the most dangerous and technically demanding operations Cerberus undertakes. And it was why I was assigned to you. It's my job to ensure that you succeed, Shepard."

Again the Spectre made a sound of disbelief. "What level of genetic modification are we talking about?"

"It's very thorough." Miranda's lips curled up arrogantly. "Physically I am _superior_ in many ways. I heal quickly; I will likely live half again as long as the average human. My biotic abilities are also very advanced. For a human. After that, add the most advanced training and education money can buy. And well, it's pretty impressive really."

Shepard's cocked eyebrow was her only response.

"I know you won't believe it, but what happened to Dr. T'Soni wasn't Cerberus... not really. Ambassador Udina... _former_ Ambassador Udina took his own initiative against you without consulting the Illusive Man. If he had known sooner, the Illusive Man would never have permitted Udina's revenge fantasy to be enacted. He wants to help you."

With that the meal and conversation was suddenly over.

"Shepard! My sister? You said I could see her today."

Again a look to the helmeted guards. "I _said _perhaps." The Spectre vanished.

As before Miranda was left with only her own thoughts. There was a very distinct methodology to how Shepard was using these sessions of interrogation, the line of questions, the meals and the abrupt departures.

The next day: It was chicken chow mein for Miranda and schezwan fried rice and wasabi for Shepard.

"Tell me Miranda, what did the Illusive Man do to make you so loyal?" Shepard started the day's interrogation.

"I told you before that my genetic alterations were not my choice. My father… created me. He is a very influential man, and extremely controlling. He didn't want a daughter he wanted a dynasty. I ran away as soon as old and brave enough. I ran to Cerberus because I knew they could protect me."

"You seem capable of defending yourself, why did you need Cerberus?"

"My father invested a great deal into his dynasty. It wasn't a matter of just leaving. I knew he would pursue his... investment."

"I assume Cerberus approves of your enhanced abilities?"

"Of course. Cerberus fully endorses anything that advances the cause for humanity. Genetic alterations included. But unlike my father and his own selfish reasons, Cerberus and the Illusive Man believe in the greater good. They see the bigger picture and that I have a purpose there."

Shepard leaned forward, taking most of her weight on her elbows that were resting on the table's surface. "You talk about yourself like you're just a… tool to be used by your father, by Cerberus."

Miranda didn't like the turn the conversation was taking. "Maybe. I like to know where I fit in the world. It helps me find meaning in how I was created."

Shepard stared in to the grey eyes of her prisoner. "You are who you are Miranda. You don't need to makes excuses for it."

"That's easy for you to say. We've both been engineered for greatness, Shepard. The difference is you were great before Dr. Chakwas rebuilt you. I'm great because of it."

Shepard shook her head. "Your spirit and personality are what make you great, it's what makes anyone great."

Miranda's lips curled into a phantom smile that she didn't feel in her heart. "That's kind of you to say. Not sure I believe you, but thanks for saying it."

The conversation was done, just as before Shepard left without so much as a word.

"My sister, Shepard when will you let me see her?"

Shepard said nothing as the door closed.

The next day:

"Who exactly is your father?" Shepard said as she handed the tray of food over to Miranda.

"A business man, but a very wealthy one. It's ironic, my father believes in a human positive agenda. He donated generously to Cerberus… before I joined them. It's how I first heard about them, through my father's connections."

"You told me a lot about your father. What about your mother?"

"I never had one." Miranda answered softly. "Most of my genetic makeup is based on my father's tissue. He had his Y chromosome altered with an amalgamation of desired traits from various sources." she sighed heavily. "How arrogant can you be? The man's completely egomaniacal. I wasn't the first daughter he created Shepard; I was just the first one he kept. It's just another reason I had to get away from him."

"How difficult was it?"

"Shots were fired."

"Your sister, how does she fit into all of this?

"When I was sixteen he decided I was not exactly what he wanted so he created her. We're virtually identical. She's my genetic twin."

"And because you despise your father you took her from him?"

"I didn't take her! I rescued her!" Miranda shouted. "I didn't want her growing up next to a monster; I didn't want his ideals infecting her mind. I wanted for her to have a normal life and the freedom to choose her own path."

Shepard had finished eating. The conversation was over. Again.

She paused at the door looking at the helmeted guards for a brief moment, waiting for Miranda to call out if she could see her sister. But the question wasn't asked. So Lawson had at least figured it out: As long as she made the demand it would not be granted.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

"You're going to get me into trouble Ori! No. I cannot." Nual protested for the fourth time. "You'll see her when Commander Shepard believes the time is right. You just have to have patience. Isn't it enough she allows you to watch the interrogation sessions?"

"No! You don't get it. By the time I'm allowed to see her in person it's too late, she'll have formed the perfect response, the perfect reaction to anything I say or do. I need to catch her off guard. I just want to see her, without her knowing it's me watching please Nual tell me you'll help me. Please!"

The asari shook her head. "It's against regulations, Ori I'm sorry. Truly I am. Maybe if you ask the Spectre she'll let you see her as you wish."

The girl dropped her friend's hands and turned away, padding back to her bunk and sat on the edge of it, folding her legs up under her chin and hugging them to her chest. "I have to know, Nual. You wouldn't understand. I see you with the other huntresses in your squad; you're as close to them as a sister should be. My parents never hid the fact I was adopted, they made a point to say I was chosen because they loved me. There was an accident years ago leaving both my parents unable to sire or carry children. They wanted children.

"Then I came along and they held me, and loved me just as if I was born to them. My mother said I was her soul daughter. I was born to be her child as she was born to be my mother. My dad said he finally got how the asari are when their bondmates have a kid by using someone else's mind. They are as much as an _arda_ to the child born to their wives and not sired by them as they are to those that are.

"But I wasn't born to them. I was created in a lab just like Miranda. I was created… I'm a tank bred human Nual! Don't you get what that means? I was never born. I have to know! I have to know if evil is genetic. She's my genetic twin. I have to know, Nual."

The asari puffed out a breath of air. "Okay. Okay" she signed "There might be a way we can pull this off. But you can't say a word; you have to behave exactly like a huntress. Follow any orders given to you without hesitation or question. Just obey them."

Oriana popped her head up, her gray eyes growing wide. She lowered her legs until her feet touched the floor. "I can do that."

"And you're wrong, Ori. I do get it. I understand the fear." Nual looked away. "My elder sister… Yanis is an ardat-yakshi."

"Oh Nual…" Oriana's excited expression transformed from excitement into compassion and remorse. She had lived her whole life on Illium, an asari colony world. She knew the word, knew what it meant. "I am so sorry."

The young woman shrugged. "Nothing can be done about it. I guess it's why I was so eager to join up with this crew. Not for Shepard. But for Dr. T'Soni, we are both true born. We're both lucky that the flaw jumped us. "

To say the word pure blood was a grave insult amongst the asari. Often times those of such parentage referred to themselves as simply pure or true born or even a more the crass term of full-blood but never pure blood. Well almost never.

"My sister was always a mischief maker. I think that's how she gained the attention of a Justicar. She… she didn't do anything… truly bad. She didn't give into the impulse… but… I… I was relieved that when the Justicar came she surrendered and agreed to go to the Monastery. My mother and sire were too. I think they made contact with Justicar Samara just after my sister was diagnosed because they feared Yanis would make a run for it. If she did, the Justicar would be forced to kill her because of the Code. My parents never admitted it, but I knew and so did Yanis. They did it because they rather she live in the Monastery alive even if she hated them than dead.

"I don't think I'll ever get to see her again. Not unless she starts following rules but I doubt it. Yanis never did when we were kids. She never did as she was told. It was like our birth ranks were reversed, I always felt like the older sister." The young huntress signed heavily. "Guess sometimes I'm a lot like her. You know if we do this and we're caught, I'll probably lose my commission and I most certainly will end up in the brig."

"I'll tell the Commander it was my fault, I talked you into it."

Nual snorted, "Do not tell me you are that naïve to think Shepard, or anyone else for that matter, would buy that. The truth is I'm breaking regs. And I definitely know better."

"Nual…"

"Just… shut up about it, alright? Just keep quiet and for the love of the Goddess don't remove that helmet once it's on. We're just lucky humans resemble asari… sort of." She took the human's hand, "Come on let's get you kitted out." She shook her head, _This is so going to bite me in the ass._

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEM

Today was different.

There was still the table, the chair, trays and the MRE packs, but this time there was no choice of food, both were beef stroganoff, but the choice of which pack Lawson wanted to eat remained. There were also the bottles of water. But there was to be no questions raised, no conversations pursued. It unnerved Miranda more than she liked to admit.

She tried to gauge Shepard, but she gave nothing away, her posture was the same as it had been the past three days. The way she prepped and ate the food just the same and paradoxically radically different.

Maybe it was due to the body language of the two helmeted guards. The first day they were watching her, studying her, perhaps waiting for her to morph into some kind of beast. Today though, the one on the right was watching the Spectre intently, but the one on the left stared at Miranda making her feel as if she were under a lens of a high powered microscope. Her stomach churned.

"So now that we've had dinner, how about a movie." Shepard said without actually asking a question. "I don't know how you feel about monster flicks. But I want your opinion on this." She craned her neck looking behind us. "Give us the room!"

Miranda watched as the helmeted figurers looked at one another and hesitantly departed the brig. The operative continued watching the exodus until all the remaining huntresses were gone.

_Well this doesn't bode well_.

"This vid is for a very select audience." Shepard offered almost playfully. "They don't need to see it."

A section of the bulkhead directly across from Miranda' cell slid open.

"What no popcorn?" Miranda snipped.

"I don't think you will want it."

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Nual pulled Oriana against the bulkhead far enough away from her sister huntresses so as not to have their conversation overheard. "What the hell was that in there? You all but gave yourself away!" the asari hissed.

"I… I… am sorry. I… don't… But you heard her! I thought maybe I was a product of… I don't know... what to think anymore. But to find out I'm nothing more than some kind of piecemeal… Frankensteinian creature! You heard what Miranda said; our father took desired traits from who knows how many women, just created to be the perfect human female. Tits, hair, ass… brains… hell even our biotics all created just for some asshole's ego. His dynasty.

"And look what he created. Miranda is just as twisted. What kind of woman runs from the company of the devil directly into the arms of another demon? She did it eyes wide open. That means it's just a matter of time before I am just like her."

Nual removed her helmet and gripped the human by the shoulders. "That's not true. Your sister was raised by your father then later by the Illusive Man. She had no hope of being anything but what she is. But there must be something good in her, she saved you from her fate and made sure that up until now you had a normal life."

Oriana shrugged off the gauntleted hands on her shoulders to lift her helm from her head. "I need to talk to her."

"Oh no, no no no. You said you needed to see her, you saw her. You wanted to hear what she had to say, you heard. There is no talking, not until Shepard allows it. No way."

"What is this then?" a new voice cracked.

"Oh shit." Nual groaned. "Naga'sadow, I… can explain everything."

Arms folded over a chest. "I'm listening."

"It was me! My idea." Oriana popped in.

"Please Ori, don't help." Nual muttered shaking her hands in front of her as it to wave off the human's next words.

"But she should know that it was all me. Lieutenant, I talked Nual into letting me go in there." Oriana protested.

"Oh no…" Nual clapped a hand over her forehead and winced.

"Is that so?" The older asari ignored the junior officer's reactionary protests. "You mean to tell me that a civilian, barely more than a child even to her own people, somehow cajoled a huntress into not only forsaking her duty, but to deliberately endanger her charge?"

"Um…" Oriana grimaced, "put like that… it sounds very bad."

"You think?" Both Naga'sadow and Nual said at the same time.

"Nual, return to your quarters. You are confined there until Shepard or the XO is ready to deal with you. As for you Miss Solheim, you will come with me."

"Yes ma'am." again a chorused response—this time from human and asari.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

"That was nothing but propaganda!" Miranda raged.

"No more than what you're people were going to do to me! That faked news report taken from hijacked camera footage was doctored to make it look like I went on a killing spree, rampaging through the Presidium. Presented no less by a news anchor woman who had been a prisoner of the krogan because of her links to… guess what? Your organization.

"I was to be blackmailed into stepping down from my position as Spectre or it would have been aired. Cerberus wanted to discredit me; make me out to be some sort of sociopathic degenerate suffering from PTSD. And it would have worked had it not been for a benevolent hacker that placed a virus on the vid feed that, should any computer run it, the hard-drive is wiped clean.

"Tell me, Operative Lawson, that there isn't a contingency plan in case Project: 'Let's turn Shepard into a raving lunatic,' didn't work."

_Caesar _Miranda automatically corrected, but said naught verbally. _A joint operation with Lazarus,_ _Yes the Illusive Man had wanted to turn you into Julius Caesar a heroic figure turned tyrant to be killed by the Senate in order to free Rome of his hold. Broken, lost you'd then be then saved by Cerberus from the jaws of death and oblivion. Given all you could ever ask for to fight the Collectors…the Reapers. All you had to do was to submit for the better good of humanity._ But to the Spectre facing her she said nothing.

"You called that propaganda?" Shepard snarled, drawing Miranda back from her thoughts. "Enlighten me Operative Lawson, which part of it was hyped, where was it falsified? Oh you can't, can you? Because that vid, though a compilation of various instances of unforgivable crimes was all true. Every bit of it was true."

"That 'monster flick' of yours was completely out of context and you know that!" Miranda snarled back.

"Your experiments crossed the line!" Shepard countered.

"All the time yes, but I recall a Spectre who crossed a few lines while hunting down Saren and the geth. And we'd be lucky to have you; too many people join us out of simple xenophobia. We need more people here for the right reasons."

"I saw your bases. You were using rachni, thorian creepers even husks to make your own army."

"The husks were already dead, the thorian creatures were mindless and the rachni were abandoned once we understood their intelligence. We weren't breeding an army; we were breeding expendable shock troops for high risk scenarios. How many soldiers died on Saren's attack on Eden Prime? How many would have lived if we had just a dozen rachni soldiers on our side?"

"What was Cerberus trying to prove experimenting on kids, like Gillian Grayson?"

"A mistake no question. Not mine."

"Oh that's too easy Miranda, and too cheap for you to pull now. Cerberus took an autistic child and tormented her system with clandestine experimental drugs. I can only imagine what horrors were done before Gillian, what experiments preceded Cerberus latching onto the Ascension Program. How many children were tormented, tortured in the attempt to make the perfect biotic? Your biotics?"

Miranda scratched the spot beneath her collarbone indicating her unease. Shepard relentlessly pursued her line of questioning.

"Your Illusive Man is as dirty as they come. You call him a visionary, but of what? That man is a fascist and a terrorist. Just like Saren _before_ his indoctrination."

"He is not a tyrant! He's no saint, and he'll be the first to say it but he _is_ a true visionary. He wants to secure humanity their place in the galaxy. Can you tell me you don't want the same, or are you no longer human?"

"I am much of a human as you are, Lawson. What is better, to be human or humane? With your intelligence you could have landed any job you wanted. Why choose this?"

"Because I still envy Kirrahe's time with the STG, working with people as smart as he is. Cerberus never tells me that something is impossible. They give me my resources and say do it. And they can give you even more. A new life, a new ship, The Illusive Man's personal attentions."

"I have had enough of his attentions thank you very much. You are not making a very good argument for your Hound of Hell, Lawson. I have no intentions of serving in Tartarus under the flag of TIMmy."

"You don't have to serve. An alliance then. You're good at those. Don't let your past with us blind you to what we can offer you! WE believe you, Samantha Shepard. Who in the Alliance military top Brass believes your warnings about the Reapers or the Collectors? Who within your precious Council takes you at your word? None! But we do! We can give you the recourses to face off against the Reapers. To stop the Collectors.

"Strategically speaking you know this is the right course. You need us. Hell, if the batarians offered their forces to face off against the Reapers wouldn't you use them? You would and you know it. If you would use theirs, then use ours, Shepard."

The Spectre stood and headed for the door.

"Just think about it, Shepard."


	2. Stacking the Deck

RED Spelling BLUE Grammar Tenses GREEN Word Choice missing words

Chapter Two: Stacking the Deck

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Three Days Earlier…_Normandy._

Shepard stood quietly in the medbay beside Dr. Chakwas in between two of the beds. One contained a very small quarian, the other a broken turian. Tali had agreed to sleep but only if she could be near her love just as Liara had been when Sam had been so gravely wounded after the battle of the Citadel. Of course the threat of sedation had also worked.

"How is he?" the Spectre asked of Garrus, her blue eyes resting upon the man who lay sleeping on the bed. It struck the Spectre a little strange to see the man she had viewed as her brother without his armor, even his causal hardsuit. On the Citadel she had seen plenty of turians going about in casual wear either in informal garb or in business suits but she had never seen one of their kind topless before. The dark haired woman padded gently up to the slumbering man and touched his shoulder lightly so as not to disturb him.

His carapace wasn't as nearly spiky as she thought it might have been. Good thing too, she couldn't imagine the soft skin of Tali cuddling up to something as abrasive as coarse sandpaper. There will be some chaffing but Chakwas and Sullus should be able to counteract that with some sort of ointment or cream.

"He will live but not without his scars. Like you he had to have cybernetics implanted to save his life. He lost his right eye and mandible and ear. He lost a bit of his fringe as well. But he will make a full recovery. Physically." Chakwas put a hand on Shepard's arm drawing the younger woman's attention to her. "He will need help, emotionally. I asked Master Xedrix to speak with him."

Master Xedrix of course. Despite he was a converted disciple of Confucius as many turians were, he represents all turian doctrine. And he like his other two colleagues was a credited councilor, trained especially to handle the physiology of his own people's mindset. The very presence of the three clergymen made the integration of multilateral crew that much more easily handled.

"He has Tali now." Shepard whispered as she cast a glanced glance towards the slumbering young woman. While the Spectre respected the clergy she didn't put a great deal of stock in the faiths. Any of them. She was no atheist; it was fair to say she was more agonistic than anything. There were some greater powers out there, what name it took, what gender, what face it wore, Shepard cared little. She was raised to respect the totems of The People—the Salish, and praise the Goddess Danu of the Druids. Now married to an asari the triple faced goddess of her paternal Celtic heritage became Athame. There was no difference in the young woman's eyes. Sam knew faith gave hope, and that was a very valuable commodity, one Shepard placed great stock in, but she put greater stock in the heart.

"Love like that can pull you though a hell of a lot. Even when you are part synthetic." Shepard flexed her right hand. Most of the bones, tendons and muscles had been replaced. A great deal of her body had been substituted with bio-synthetic and cybernetics technology. Mostly because of a chunk of Sovereign's hull had fallen on her, the rest due to the debilitating affects of cyan syndrome.

Chakwas smiled. More than anything Liara had pulled Samantha out of her moments of doubt, darkness and despair. Yes in accordance to Alliance regulations Shepard attended sessions with grief councilors, had psyc-evals but it was Liara's devotion, her love that pulled Shepard through the shadows. Tali would do the same for Garrus.

"Never limit Tali's access to him." Shepard ordered. "No matter the hour."

"Didn't even cross my mind." Chakwas answered sparing a look to Tali then moved to interrupt Shepard's line of sight on Garrus. "We never talked about what happened in that apartment the Pirate Queen gave you. How are you doing?"

"The Archangel's Lair? Why? What is there to speak of?"

Chakwas pushed knowing she needed to. "Why call it that-the Archangel's Lair?"

"He is a guardian of the purest sort." Shepard crossed her arms over her chest and drew in a long breath before sighing it out. "He always has my back, always there. Always will be, whatever comes I can always rely on that. He will be there at the very bitter end. He held the line in that loft. He saved the lives of the whole squad when he drew the fire of that damned gunship. In every sense of the word he's an archangel. " Shepard let her arms fall to her side and said nothing more but walked for the exit.

"Shepard! It isn't your fault." Chakwas called after her.

Shepard paused, but didn't turn; her head shifted only a little when she spoke in a passionate whisper. "Yes it is. Every soldier fallen on the battlefield is there because of the commander that put them there. Their lives and their deaths are in their hands. My hands. There is always an accounting. There _**must**_ always be an accounting. Any CO who does not take that mantle does not deserve the tile: commander. It means to lead. It means to take an accounting of the failures, successes, deaths and lives of those under their command. What befell Garrus…my brother, my archangel…is my burden. There is no Shepard without Vakarian." That said the young woman departed.

A tiny part of Chakwas wondered, just wondered if Shepard regretted calling Ashley Williams her Trusted when it might have been Garrus Vakarian. She knew the whole fiasco with the trinity was only due to the symptoms of CS. That blasted god-cursed condition that affected biotics into feeling all emotions into the extremes and exaggerating them. Well of course one those extremes Samantha Shepard and by proxy because of the bond Liara had assumed the loving friendship Shepard and Ash was something more. And so the asari had introduced the idea of a three-way union. Thank heavens Ash had some sense in her and rejected the offer.

Chakwas looked at the man in the bed and Shepard's last words echoed within her mind: 'There is no Shepard without Vakarian.'

'_You will never raise hand against her will you, Archangel? I wonder if it all came down to it there is one on the crew will ever pull a gun on Shepard_?' The smallest part of the doctor's hindbrain went back to Williams. There already been an altercation between commander and lieutenant, one that nearly caused the ties of friendship to crumble into dust.

Again it was because of a preconceived notion that Williams was hiding something from her CO, placing Shepard on the defensive. Udina had approached the young lieutenant to exonerate the darkness over her grandfather's legacy. All Williams had to do was to leak information about Shepard and her connection to Liara. No doubt the slimy bastard would have given the Intel directly to the Illusive Man so that Cerberus could dictate the results of the gestalt. Williams had sat on the offer instead of coming to Shepard right away and presenting the evidence of Udina's betrayal.

Chakwas treated Williams for the bruising around her neck given to her by a very enraged commander. Of course that should have been the tip-off that something was wrong with their commander. Perhaps the symptoms of CS might have been diagnosed earlier. Chakwas chided herself for not being more observant, she knew the Spectre was highly stressed at the time, and thus the good doctor had not seen the signs.

Another train of thought crossed the physician's mind. If it all came down to what the young lieutenant thought or believed to duty, on what end of the gun would she face Shepard with? Undying devotion to duty was very commendable and it was equally blinding. Hell she knew that kind of devotion. Karin Chakwas self-admittedly was completely devoted to the Spectre and her cause. The commander for Shepard will always be the commander was the immovable center. Chakwas would never turn her back on Shepard. Once more she trusted Shepard to be above all, ethical even when it appeared she was deliberately navigating the black-bleak waters of lies, deceits and feints, such were the tactics of war. Deceive and outflank the enemy.

The aging woman worried for her commander. How many will turn on the Hero of the Citadel, Saviour of Elysium? And how many more who had already forsaken her word, ignored her warnings would come begging for her to save them when it all came to fruition?

"I serve you my Commander Shepard. I always will. Where you go, I go, where you lead I follow until the ending of my days." Chakwas uttered the hard promise in a soft voice. It was an ancient promise of her forbearers: bannermen to their sovereign liege lords. From past and far off times to this present day the promise was not diminished, because the value of them had faded into obscurity or transformed into oaths of service of the current government. To Karin Chakwas they had great and powerful meaning, because the woman she had made such a vow was great and powerful-a woman to deliver them from oblivion.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Two Days Ago: Omega.

The return to the Pirate Queen's domain was no where near as eventful as it had been during the first visit. In no way however did the atmosphere of the nightclub lend itself lowering one's guard, if anything the very air hyper-accelerated the senses.

At the bottom of the stairs were the same batarians that were there during Shepard's first visit. Anton, Sanak were their names if the Spectre recalled correctly. Sanak was the one that threatened to toss her out the airlock if she forgot the single rule of Omega. Shepard smirked as she passed him thinking how Wrex put the bastard in his place.

At the top of the stairs the _Normandy_ crew encountered another bodyguard; this one was an asari huntress.

Aleena drew in a breath of air recognizing who it was that stood before her. The huntresses eyes were the same as her own, the same as Aria's the same eyes her mother had. So this was Liselle.

"She's expecting you." the maiden said eyeballing Aleena longer than she did the human or her asari bondmate. Her eyes continued to follow her as trio mounted the last tier to her mother. 'That was my mother seven hundred years ago!' She turned still watching, her attention not on the Spectre as one might have first suspect but on the bounty hunter. Of course partly due to her mother's training. 'Keep your eyes on the leader's left and right flank. Who do they trust to cover their backs, and how loyal are they to the one who pays them?

"Ah Spectre, I wondered when you'd return to my court." Aria said with her back was turned to the human as it had been when they first met. "I would say I was in your debt for aiding in the curing of the plague but I believe this evens the score between us. I did 'nothing' as you desired and gave you that little apartment block which is now nothing but rubble." For the moment the Queen of Omega was content to simply pour herself a glass of Novarian rum.

"Yes on that score we are even. But now I have to ask another favor of you, one whose debt I'll pay thrice over _if_ you are willing to undertake it." Shepard said.

"You don't strike me as a stupid person, Spectre." Aria turned around and sat demurely upon the settee and took a sip of her drink. "So why are you so willing to pay such an exorbitant price without telling me what you want?"

"If I did, you'd accuse me of melodrama and you'd not be the first." Shepard crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes never leaving the asari's.

A smirk fell upon the purple lips of the Pirate Queen. "Oh now you have my interest."

"Make them go and your interest will be filled." Shepard made a pointed look to Aria's henchmen.

Aria looked at those beside the Spectre; she recognized her own sister and Shepard's bondmate the T'Soni maiden.

"And those that stand with you?"

"Will remain where they stand." Shepard's voice became stern and unmoving.

"You think to beg a favor of me and in the same breath make demands of me?" Aria's hand began to glow blue. The batarians snickered waiting for the human cunt to fall as her kind are only meant to exist on their knees.

"I do not beg Aria, but you need to hear what I say with open ears and an equally open mind. You have a head for business and profitable ventures. I dare say when you hear what I have to say you will see the true value of it."

"You will speak in front your people but not in front of mine?" Aria challenged.

"I know those that stand with me. My bondmate, I hide nothing from her and my field-medic…I trust her explicitly. _Dr. S'thasa_ is apart of my squad, my crew."

"And you don't think I trust my men any less?" the matriarch challenged.

"That depends." Shepard's voice dropped an octave. She reached into the cargo pocket on her left thigh and pulled out a small datapad and held up it to the lavender skinned asari. ". The mech bands that went after me and Liara were coming for you next. I got this off the body of the Eclipse leader."

"Let me see that." Aria demanded holding her hand out catching the padd as Shepard tossed it to her.

_**T**__**arak:  
I've spoken to Garm, and he and his men are on board. Assuming this operation is successful, we can count on high morale and extensive buy-in from the men. From the losses we've already taken, possibility exists that we won't have the men needed to continue on to the next objective. It's clear, though that none of our organizations would be ready to move on Aria without the assistance of the other two.  
Jaroth**_

The rage swelled within the Pirate Queen's chest. The datapad sailed through the air zinging Anton between his four eyes, bounced off his skull and clattered to the floor at his feet. "You want to tell me how something like this slipped the net!"

"I'll…I'll get right on it boss!" the batarian stammered backpedaling off the dais nearly tripping over his own feet as he did so.

Her green eyes narrowed as T'Loak turned her attention to the remaining batarians with a look that screamed: 'Why are you still two standing here?' The smugness on their faces washed away as they scurried after their fellow minion. "Liselle, remain." Her voice was still dark. Strange there had been no protest on the human's lips at this proclamation which intrigued the Pirate Queen. Then as if nothing happened, Aria's personality instantly changed. Demurely she took another deep sip from her glass.

"I will grant you your audience Spectre. But never trade on my benevolence again. I don't show it often and I give to you today only because of your actions in the Gozu district. And for that." She nodded towards the datapad still on the floor.

Shepard turned her full focus to Aria. "We cannot speak here in so open a forum."

"I told you I wouldn't indulge you…"

"Sister…" Aleena dared to speak of her relationship causing Liselle to snap her head up and stare at the woman who was her aunt.

To so openly admit it was a dangerous card to play with the Queen of Omega especially now when her anger was still so high. Liselle was never to speak of her relationship in public. She rarely spoke if it in private. The rumors floated about that Liselle wasn't just one of Aria's top guns but also one of her occasional dalliances. A rumor Aria allowed to cover the truth that the younger asari was indeed her daughter.

"Hear her out. This is bigger than you can possibly imagine." Aleena urged.

"You mean to speak of the collectors?" Aria narrowed her green eyes, her gaze never leaving Shepard.

The Spectre was about to speak but the bounty hunter beat her to it. "I'd ask what you know of them Pirate Queen but our need is more urgent. In fact your actions today could very well mean the survival of Thessia and the rest of council space."

"My my such drama little sister. One might think you were an actress out of asariwood. Really Aleena I thought better of you."

"_Gwathel_!" Aleena hissed using the formal asarian word for sister.

The look in the elder sister's eyes was pure murder. "Very well." With the grace of a great hunting cat, Aria causally slinked off the sofa and headed for her secluded apartments.

Once within the private confines Aria whirled panther quick on her sister. With a biotic slam and she pushed the bounty hunter into the wall so hard her shoulder was dislocated. She hung there suspended two and half meters off the floor by the older Asari's power. "I warned you _**neve**_**r** use that word in public Aleena. When did you turn into a fucking dull stone?"

"Only way…to…get you to listen _gwathel_!" Aleena ground out the words between gritted teeth. Again the bounty hunter dared to use the forbidden word.

Aria snarled deep in her throat and dropped her sister to the ground with a hard thud. She turned and saw both T'soni and Shepard glowing blue in the summoning of biotic power but they made no other aggressive moves. The Pirate Queen felt the raw power of their barriers and smiled as shark. Even a matriarch of her talents might have difficulty breaking the combined shielding. Not that it couldn't be done, of course. But not today…

Truth be told, Aria was impressed and satisfied to see the younger women ready for a confrontation. "Calm yourselves." she dismissed their battle ready stances with a flippant if not queenly wave of her hand. "It was nothing more than a gentle reminder to my little sister that not even she is not allowed to overstep her bounds. And you're treading on a very fucking thin line Shepard. I should slam _you_ into a wall for that shit you pulled out there."

"I promise you once hear what I have to say, what I have to show you, you will change your mind." Shepard said nonplused by the insults or threats. "There is a storm coming and it will consume the galaxy."

"And the drama continues." Aria drawled. "You mean the Reapers? I heard that little speech you gave after the battle of the Citadel—my little Spectre: '_Who can stand? Not one soul. Not one! But many can. Not one nation… one world… not one race can stand. But many can… No Reaper will be able to clap its broad wings over the battlefield and rejoice in the slaughter.'_

"Very theatrical, very powerful words. I have to admit you have a way with them. All that military bravado, I can appreciate the need to inspire the troops. Way I hear it the Council outright dismissed your claims, so did your Alliance. You have very few believing in you Shepard and most of them are either on your crew or conspiracy theorists. Even the Wizard believes in you. Now if you can get the Shadow Broker on your side you may have something. Right now all you have are the tricks of scare mongering."

"Look at me and tell me you actually believe the drivel that Sovereign was a geth construct or a repurposed Reaper." The human's voice was distilled in quiet rage. She would not be dismissed again.

"In my line of work I can't afford to take anything on belief, Shepard."

"Spoken like a true matriarch." Shepard said, causing Aleena to hiss.

Aria scowled. Unlike humans she wasn't going to deny her age. But she didn't like it open for public consumption unlike her sister matriarchs. She wasn't about to admit she was well over a thousand years old, leave things like that to old crones like Althea. Shepard boldly proceeded. "I don't know if you are aware I had a meeting with some of the Matriarchy to allow me to under go the Great Hunt. I shared with them the visions I have from the protheans beacons. According to Councilor Tevos my visions are true insomuch because I believe them to be true, so when the matriarchs melded with me they saw no lie in the visions."

"But the Matriarchy won't move, is that it?" Aria almost snapped. "Why come to me?"

"Because you are going to meld with me," Aleena said. "I don't have the cipher but I have the visions from it all the same. My _melethril_ shared them with me during _núr-gwédh._"

If Aria was upset before she was very nearly livid now. "You have a _melethril?_ And you shared _núr-gwédh?_ You foolish bitch, I raised you better than that. To be smarter than that! You realize how much you danger you have so stupidly embraced? How much danger you put into this woman's life, this _melethri_l of yours?"

"I didn't embrace stupidity sister, I embraced eternity. Shiala was a disciple to Matriarch Benezia and the _Normandy's_ XO she is no stranger to danger. I love Shiala, deeply. I will become _arda_ to her daughter and I _am_ taking her as my bondmate. I have no intentions of living my life alone like you!" Green eyes fell on Liselle "Or having to pretend to."

"Leave my daughter out of this. Her life will always be endangered because of who I am. Which is why her true identity is kept secret." She turned to the human and T'Soni. "Until now. You are too much in Shepard's shadow, Aleena. Look what happened to her bondmate and daughter. Has that taught you nothing?"

"Enough!" Shepard snarled. "We leave Liselle out of this and you leave Liara and Secura out of it Pirate Queen. You want to go on protecting your daughter? Then help us. Her identity known to me and Liara is of no threat to her or you. But the Reapers will be. Help us with the asari Matriarchy. Help me to convince them the threat of the Reapers is a real and present danger. The galaxy at large needs to be ready. The people, militaries and civilians ready for what is coming.

"We need to start stockpiling meds, food, water and safe harbors as well as energy resources. The Reapers will hit our infrastructures hard; the main core worlds will be the first targets. It is inevitable. It will be a slaughter house, more so if we are not ready. It will be a fire sale the galaxy hasn't tasted for fifty thousand years. We need to construct underground bunkers-vaults with independent power and food-stores. There will be thousands…millions of refugees when the war comes. We need to be fully prepared for it. And we're not, not by half. When Sovereign hit the Citadel our collective bare asses were hanging out, in the open and that was just a vanguard."

"And you come to me?" Aria folded her arms. "Why?"

"Ruthless calculus," Shepard's voice became logical, pitted for a debate. "'Don't fuck with Aria.' Isn't that the rule? I bet that rule goes a hell of a lot further than Omega. And your power extends further than just what you display here. If you can convince Tevos to heed the warnings and to act on them, then the Council will act. If the Council acts Pavlon will act. When they do Earth will definitely act and if they act other worlds will act. And the survival rate of organics goes up. The only possible way to defeat the Reapers if we stand utterly united."

Aria stared not at her sister but to Liselle. Her youngest and the only daughter she had any strong ties with, any connection to. And the Goddess help her, Liselle was her favorite. Her child looked at her with expecting urging eyes to take the human and her aunt seriously. To do as they bid.

The Pirate Queen of Omega turned back to Aleena and pointedly ignored her. "You want my help Shepard, _you_ will meld with me. You _will _convince me with more than that silver tongue of yours."

Liara having been silent up until turned to her bondmate. "Samantha…I do not like this." "_The only tapping into your mind should be me. She will not be gentle, Samantha. She will not stop with only Prothean visions. She will push. And she will punish you for what happened on the floor._"

"_I know_." So that all could hear the dark haired Spectre said. "There is little choice. There was a certain amount of common dramatic verisimilitude between the events playing out now between the Pirate Queen and the Spectre and what Shepard was doing with Lawson.

"That's right. You don't have a choice." Aria gave an ambiguously austere look. "Not if you want me to consider opening a dialog with the asari councilor."

Aria was indeed not gentle

A slit of razor blade against the skin: visceral, focused and precise. It was not the human's who bleed despite that was the clear intent.

Human minds instinctively resist the Joining. Aria expected blocks, barriers. What she didn't expect was to slide in, like turbulent waters of a river rushing over reeds. The streams of thoughts were like those of an asari maiden. Mental doors were cracked open, others shut tight and a few wide open. One that was flooded with grotesques, the tearing and ripping of flesh and synthetics raped the souls of their victims. What was left was no longer whole, not longer truly sentient but an abomination.

Whole worlds destroyed, entire systems wiped out one after the other until the galaxy was burning and bleeding. Above it all inviolately intertwined was Shepard's outrage that no one was listening. She was pleading, begging for someone, anyone to listen to her words, to the warnings. Her desperation to unite, to protect life, to find a way something to stop the Reapers, were systematically destroyed as the worlds that had fallen fifty thousand years ago had been.

What seemed like hope for a moment was utterly dashed when the Council forsook her. And contrived to cover-up the truth, to deny the reality of what Sovereign truly was, and what lurked just beyond Dark Space.

Beyond all of this Aria experienced another memory, one hidden behind a curtained door but screaming to be heard. To Aria the voices that spoke had no full face, no recognition for her. Three women stood upon a gangplank looking at a ruby red holograph of…something… the memory was clearly focused on the words, not facial recognition. But the outline…it was familiar to the Pirate Queen. Almost like the map silhouette of the inner Council chambers…

"_I get the feeling something bad is about to happen_." A nervous young quarian spoke_._

"_You are not Saren." _mechanical sounding voice said, it had an odd echoing quality to it as if whatever was speaking was in a vast open space.

"_What is that? Some kind of VI interface?" _Aria now knew from Shepard's memories that the owner of this voice was named Tali, her bondmate's Trusted.

"_Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind fumbling your ignorance incapable of understanding."_

"_I do not think this is a VI."_ memory Liara said from behind Shepard's right shoulder.

"_There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you can not even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign."_

Aria found herself within Shepard's eyes rather than looking over her shoulder. She felt the emotions of that day. The dawning terrible realization of just what Saren's flagship truly was. "_Sovereign isn't just some Reapers ship Saren found it's an actually reaper!" Aria/Shepard gasped._

What Benezia, Shiala and Rana said about the subtly of its presence was more clear now. All three asari admitted that you didn't even know it was there at first, then over the course of a few days, weeks the presence became more and more infused with your own thoughts. Then one day your thoughts cease to exist at all there was only the will of the ship. While Benezia was able to shield a part of herself away from Sovereign she still succumbed. Shiala was overtaken by the thorian and when it dies, its hold over her seemingly died. But Rana Thanopterious… Shepard had shot her.

"_Reaper. A label created by the protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end what they chose to call us is irreverent. We simply are." Sovereign's demeaning voice proclaimed. _

"_The protheans vanished fifty thousand years ago! You could not have been there, it's impossible!" Liara protested. _

"_Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation. An accident. Your lives are measured in years, and decades. you wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution, of existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable, we are the end of everything." _

Like hell it was, Aria/Shepard glared at the holographic image of her enemy. Challenged Aria/Shepard tossed back at the thing before her_. "There is an entire galaxy of races united and ready to face you!"_

"_Confidence born of ignorance. The Cycle can not be broken." _Sovereign swatted the verbal parry aside.

"_Cycle? What Cycle?" _Tali's curiosity demanded. In the depths of Shepard's memory was the smaller voice that answered 'the ones within the cipher, the one Liara spoke about when she was first on the Normandy.'

Sovereign clearly was ready for this question._ "The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations arise, evolve advance and at the apex of their glory they are extinguished. The protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel; they did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them…the legacy of my kind." _a boast_._

"_Why would you construct the mass relays and leave them for someone else to find?" Aria/Shepard frowned. She knew the answer, deep down she knew it but to have it confirmed… _

"_Every civilization's technology is based on the one from the mass relays, our technology. By using it your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."_

Liara was horrified_. "They are harvesting us! Letting us advance to the level they need then wiping us out."_

This had now become an information gathering attempt; she would keep this thing talking as long as possible. Her mission had just expanded; she needed to not only destroy this base but to find out as much about the Reapers as she could,_ "What do you want from us? Slaves? Resources?" this time rage rose to the surface of _Aria/Shepard's mind, with no intention of making the attempt to cool it.

This will not do! The notion organics were nothing but a crop to be cultivated and taken when desired was reprehensible. There was no way they/she was going to allow it.

"_My kind transcends __**your**__ very understanding. We are each a nation, independent, free of all weakness. You can not even grasp the nature of our existence." _

Aria/Shepard ignored the superior proclamation. She wanted answered goddess damn-it!_ "Where did you come from? Who built you?"_

"_We have no beginning, we have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years your civilizations have been eradicated and forgotten. We will endure." _More confidence from the synthetic.

Impossible, something had to build these things for them to exist in the first place. _ "Where are the rest of the Reapers? Are you the last of your kind?" Aria/Shepard pressed. _

"_We are legion. The time of our return is at hand. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You can not escape, you are doomed."_

The beacon message Aria/Shepard realized, the images of protheans running, trying to escape the ships and what came from them to annihilate them, or simply clinging together crying out in fear and despair at what was happening. World after world after world, their populations completely eradicated, their buildings brought down and destroyed, their civilization wiped out as if it had never been. By these things. She stared it, her hatred, her defiance of it; she would not permit what had happened to the protheans to happen to those she was sworn to protect.

"_You just admitted that the universe only spontaneously generates organic life. You had a beginning, when organic life created you. And if you attack us you will have an end, when we destroy you_!" she declared her tone conveying equal parts chill anger and resolution. "_You're not even alive. Not really. You are just a machine. And machines can be broken." _Aria/Shepard spat.

"_Your words are empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over."_

Around the three women the world shattered and so did the memory back upon itself looping with the visceral images of the beacon.

Aria pulled away so sharply, it staggered the young Spectre. Shepard toppled and fell to the floor of the Pirate Queen's apartment.

Aria looked down at the kneeling human and to the young maiden who rushed to her side and held her. Liara looked back up to the matriarch challengingly. A look for the moment T'Loak allowed for it was one born out of instinct of the bonding. Gritting her teeth the Pirate Queen took to one knee and put a hand under Shepard's chin and lifted it. She met eyes that were fully cyan as her biotics swirled around her protectively.

"I was brutal to see the fullness of truth, to discern if you merely believed these things to be true or they were." Aria said haughtily

"What you did…" Liara snarled, her arms were still clutching Shepard's shoulders. Her embrace was so tight the young human would be sporting bruises for days after. "was rape her!"

"Yes." The Pirate Queen didn't even deny it. "But it was necessary."

Shepard sniffed the blood that began leaking from her nose. "And what is your proclamation Queen of Omega? Am I delusional?"

"Crazy? Yes or I suspect half the things you do wouldn't work out. But delusional, mentally unstable? No." T'Loak helped Shepard stand. There was a look in her eyes one of respect for the woman before her. However brief it was there just long enough for Shepard to actually see it before it was carefully hidden again behind a highly schooled mask. "Liselle get her something to drink and one of those protein bars." she ordered.

The queen's daughter quickly slipped into another room and returned a short moment later carrying a bottle of juice and a protein bar. Shepard didn't refuse either though she wondered if she were going to be able to keep either of them down. Her head was killing her, and her stomach was turbulent.

"I will say that I am impressed you withstood our connection, Shepard. No doubt it's that strong will of yours that allowed you to withstand the interfacing with the prothean beacons _before_ the gestalt. A lesser mind would have been mush."

"Yeah…I've heard that before." Shepard nonchalantly wiped the blood from her nose. "And you're not the first matriarch to say it. But will you be the first matriarch to do something about what you have seen?" Shepard matched the asari's eyes with her own confrontational commander's stare.

Aria's lips curled playfully cruel. "The others did something as well, Shepard. They ignored it. In those images they saw you were honest to your beliefs, to your convictions to what was shown you. But honesty is not synonymous with truth. The matriarchs of course would not do what I just did and rip that information unadulterated from your mind in order to get past the honesty to gain truth.

"However if you mean will I do something proactive? I am the Queen of Omega. I _will not_ be a bitch-slave to some tin-god! It is in my best interest to help you."

The Spectre nodded and regretted the action almost immediately as her throbbing head swam inside her skull. She was positively sick.

"If you are going to hurl please use the toilet." Aria pointed to a closed door just off to the left.

"It's only pain." The marine in Shepard answered back. She defied her stomach to obey her will by swallowing several gulps of the fruit juice.

"Do you ever have a normal day?" The Pirate Queen suddenly asked the novel question.

"Once." Shepard responded taking another swig of the juice. "I think it was a Thursday."

Aria laughed.

Shepard's stonewall resolve must have further impressed Aria for that same sly grin appeared on her purple lips. "You know it's too bad you pissed off the three heavy merc companies here on Omega. While I was content to let them kill each other, their numbers will come in handy later on. That may take sometime to finagle. That being said…" she sighed "I have favors aplenty to call on back on Thessia and Illium. Those that owe me will have no choice but to listen when I give them a call. You see I know the value of another's 'gratitude'. Oh speaking of which. You may want to speak with Althea." the smile again and a wink. "She may have a few pressies for her _Little Wing_."

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

"What do you think Aria meant that Althea had presents for you?" Aleena asked once the three of them were on a transport heading for the _Normandy_ from the station docks.

Liara didn't answer. She didn't care to. She looked up at the bounty hunter who was standing in the aisle of the transport with her arm above her head hanging on to the guide railings running along the shuttle's ceiling.

Shepard took a seat nearest the door, her hand rubbing her forehead as if to knead away the throbbing behind her eyeballs or rub out the images that freshly bled into her mind. The pressure of Liara's hand on the small of her back eased the tension building along her nervous system.

"It should have been you!" Liara snarled. She looked to her bondmate and back to Aleena. "It was supposed to be you!" She leapt to her feet shoving the other woman. "That was the plan."

"Aria would never have gone for it." Shepard spoke up. "It had to be me and it had to be Aria's choice. The only way she'd target me was if I was off the table."

Liara spun around on the balls of her feet, staring incredulously at her bondmate. "What?!"

Shepard looked up. "Aria wouldn't have linked with my mind if we told her too. She would have tossed us out on our collective asses. Especially for that stunt we pulled out on the floor, she had to feel she was punishing me to save face."

"I don't believe you. You had no intention of having Aleena join with Aria did you?" Liara gasped. Her eyes grew darker.

Shepard shook her head.

The resounding slap across the Spectre's face shocked the three of them. Liara was fuming. She stood before her bondmate in her rage. "I can not believe you!" Liara repeated. "You…allowed her to…to…rape your mind _deliberately_?"

Shepard looked down to her feet. "Yes."

Liara dropped her gaze, she was feeling too many things: fear, anger, betrayal and all of them directed at Samantha. If she could have walked away at that moment she would have. Instead she was stuck in the transport stewing in her rage and the emptiness. She was forced to sit and witness another woman-another asari do what no asari had the right to do and rip into Samantha's mind. Invade her mind and there was not a damn thing Liara could do to stop it. Samantha's soul cried out, screamed for the pain to stop, pleaded through the bond for Liara to stop it, and she couldn't.

And now she finds out Samantha deliberately allowed it? She allowed it!

Sam rose up, took two steps so she was standing directly behind her wife. She reached up and touched Liara's shoulder, but the asari shrugged it off. "I had to. Liara nobody in power is listening and we're running out of time. I have to stack the deck in our favor…"

"Don't you _dare_, Samantha. Just don't." She whirled around. "What you did…" She stopped speaking. "You are such a fool Samantha Shepard."

The hand reached once more for Liara's shoulder then fell away. The silence lingered, heavy on in their air, heavier on the heart. Aleena wanted to fade into the furthest darkest shadowy corner. This was not something she needed to witness, to take part of despite the fact she was a part of it all.

"Go see Dr. Chakwas, before you play your games with Lawson." Liara demanded in a low growl.

"I will." answered the wife.

Liara nodded.

The shuttle landed. The door was popped and Liara marched out not looking behind her.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Present Day: _Normandy_

Oriana followed sullen and slow of foot behind the cool and removed stature of LT. Naga'sadow. "If I can just explain…"

"Do you think anything said now will change Huntress Nual's fate?"

"I…" Oriana paused, sucked in a bit of air and stood prouder, more confrontational. "Yes! Because I…pleaded with her to let me see and hear what my sister had to say in defense of the evils Cerberus had done. I didn't know of her past but when I heard it I….I used it without impunity. I…"

"Will see the Spectre." Naga'sadow said. "She will decide what is to become of this development."

Oriana continued to follow realizing she wasn't going to be taken to a secluded area to be questioned but directly to the brig. "We're going…in there?"

"Yes."

"But my sister is in there."

"How very astute of you to observe that."

"But she will know I was there. That I heard what she said."

"Yes."

Oriana paused "This was Shepard's plan all along wasn't it?" Her blue eyes opened wide. "That's why she had two guards always in a helmet. She knew that I would convince Nual to let me in the brig during the interrogations. And she…she…"

"Put Huntress Nual on your guard detail because her sister is ardat 'yakshi. Again yes."

"Because Nual would be sympathetic to me."

"Again you are astute in your deductions." Naga'sadow responded nonplused.

"I'm a quick study." Oriana stood staring and the asari, "but why? Am I a tool or a weapon against Miranda?"

"That is for Operative Lawson to decide."

The young woman frowned. "What? I don't…understand."

"How do you think your sister will respond to the knowledge you were in the room with her, or the assumption you were in there all along?"

"Agent Shepard said I was to be the redemption for Miranda. She admitted that was my true role here, the real reason I was taken into protective custody, not just as bait. It was why I was shown that footage of Cerberus crimes, so I would be in that room the day Shepard showed it to Miranda. She said I was going to be used to turn her. I guess I didn't see just exactly how. I didn't think she manipulated events so fully that'd I'd willingly place myself there. Now it makes sense, when Shepard said that Miranda's redemption began with my choices."

Naga'sadow said nothing as she escorted the young human back into the brig. Helmet still in hand Oriana Solheim came face to face with the true facade of the Spectre. A woman of command and undeniable power. A soldier that lead others into unthinkable suicidal odds with only the promise she'd be there every step of the way.

Oriana's eyes were drawn to her sister who fell back against the wall of her cell. Hard. She slumped against the solid surface and slid down to the floor. The assumption was made, just as Shepard had planned it. Even if Oriana said she hadn't been in the room the whole time, Miranda's heart had fallen because she had believed otherwise. Precisely as Shepard had stacked the deck all in her favor.

"Agent Shepard?" Naga'sadow made sure of the deliberate use of the Spectre's title rather than the Alliance military rank others were more familiar with. "There had been an incident that needs your attention."

Shepard looked to Orana smiled and completed the poorly played farce with: "Cadet Solheim remain with the prisoner." With that she left the room to Oriana and Miranda.

For a moment both sisters stared at each other both accepting the charade for what it was.

"Shepard is many things. Subtle isn't one of them." Miranda said still in the position she had been when she hit the floor.

"She is what she, is a military commander at war." Oriana answered. "And nobody with the power to do something about it is listening to her."

Using her hands Lawson pushed herself back onto her feet. Preparing her mind for the barrage of questions and accusations surely Oriana was ready to assault her with. She could see them burning behind her sister's eyes.

"Shepard spoke of this to you?" Miranda was dumbfounded. Surely the Spectre would not have played such a hand.

"No. If something was being done we'd have heard about it, governments would be moving, prepping people. They are not, which means Shepard is being silenced."

"Cerberus has listened! We want to help her."

"But only on your terms, only if she rids herself of her _alien_ wife. You people already murdered her daughter. You don't want Shepard to have any connections outside humanity…outside Cerberus. The Illusive Man wants her to be his bitch and to heel just like you. I bet he doesn't even want to help Shepard. He wants whatever the Reapers have. The ability to control others, to utterly dominate them. But he can't get it without Shepard. But you can't get Shepard as she is now. You need her broken, don't you? "

Miranda should not have been surprised that her sister summed up the whole scenario of 'Operation Caesar' so quickly. Oriana was after all her sister, held the same mental capabilities. Of Shepard had too. But then of course Shepard had developed the same analysis…so maybe the perfection of genes had nothing to do with it.

"What happened to Dr. T'Soni and her child wasn't Cerberus, not really. It was Udina who did that and on his own initiative because the alien Council used him as a shill a pawn in their games, because of how they acted, Udina had to respond the only way he could. Yes it was tragic decision, and perhaps rash, definitely reactionary, and yes Cerberus tried to contain the situation but we were not the cause of it!"

"I have ears to hear, eyes to see. I know what was on that vid Miranda. Cerberus seek to lionize their actions while demonizing all they see as enemy."

"That was all propaganda, things taken out of context."

"Oh yeah I'm sure what happened that poor quarian kid was taken completely out of context. Or you going to tell me that 'wasn't Cerberus…not really'? Not a great organization if you ask me if you have that many rogue agents running around."

"I….I wasn't a part of that, Oriana. And… the military isn't always clean either. They have done countless atrocities throughout history. And yet Shepard is still a part of them she still became a marine, an N-Seven and the Spectres are just as dirty. Yet you exonerate her, while…"

Oriana pressed herself against the bars of the cell, "You really going to play shift-the-blame game with me _sister_? Really?"

Lawson looked away clearly abashed. "No. No I won't. I supposed we are both better than that."

"One of us is." Oriana challenged. "I'm asking Shepard to join her crew. Officially. I don't know what I can accomplish here, but I have to do something! And not just for humans. History can say that at least one of Hennery Lawson's tank-bred daughters has the moral conscience to do the right thing." Oriana spun around and ran out the brig's door leaving Miranda to call out after her.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

It was some hours later before Shepard reappeared. As before she reclaimed her chair, and just sat there, her azure eyes meeting Miranda's gray. For some reason, Miranda expected the younger woman to gloat, to posture over the play with her sister. But she did not. There was austerity within those blue eyes, but not boasting over her triumph. There was only silence.

This was the face of Commander Samantha Shepard come Commander and Spectre. This was the face that would lead the galaxy to war against the machines. A face that would launch more than a thousand ships.

"I would not have believed it before but I don't have what you do, that fire that makes someone willing to follow you into hell itself. My father got me the best genes money could buy. Guess that wasn't enough." she was bitter.

Shepard leaned forward resting her elbows on the table. "You always bring up your genetic tailoring. It really bothers you doesn't it?" Another counter.

"This is what I am Shepard. I can't hide it. The intelligence, the looks, even the biotics, my father paid for all of that. Every one of your accomplishments is due to your skill. The only things I can take credit for are my mistakes."

"You give your father too much credit. You were given gifts; it is how you chose to use them that defines you. My grandmother Shan once told me: 'Our thoughts become our words. Our words become our actions, our actions become our habits. Our habits become our values and our values…our values become our destiny.'

"What is your destiny Miranda? You rescued your sister so she has the freedom to choose her path, but do you have a choice?"

"We are not always the person we hoped we'd be." Miranda muttered.

"No we're not." Shepard admitted in the same solemn voice thinking of what she had to do to get Aria onboard. How she had hurt Liara to do it. "None of us choose our end, really. A commander may move a soldier. An overlord may motivate her dominion.

When I was a younger my mentor once told me that even when those who move you be they commanders or persons of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. When you stand before the Goddess, you cannot say, 'But I was told by others to do thus', or that virtue' not convenient at the time'. This will not suffice."

"Virtue? You speak to about virtue? And what of Oriana? What virtue will you choose for her? Are you going to allow her on your crew? She told me she was going to ask you to let her stay on."

"She has. And no I will not allow her to serve on the _Normandy_. Not even if she enlisted. Her place is not on a warship. We need people like her at groundside, in support roles, helping with the organization and maintenance of refugee camps and the like. And I hate to say it we will need young women like her to be the mothers of a new generation after this war with the Reapers are over. The only way to survive the aftermath is to start having babies."

"Babies." Miranda whispered the single word. 'Only she is like me…the curse of our perfection. She and I can't have babies.' The thought was heavy on the older woman's mind. She looked up guilt on her face, "About your…"

"Don't apologize to me Miranda. Just don't. I don't want your pity and I don't accept it. Udina and Cerberus wanted Liara and Secura dead, they wanted me to bleed. They want me to feel so helpless so broken that I am utterly lost. So lost that I go mad and sink below the sea. They would have me shatter ties with everyone that has any meaning to me, and when I am utterly destroyed I will be piecemealed back together as Cerberus sees fit.

"I know this and so do you. If Cerberus truly wanted to help they would have by now rather than waste time, energy and resources on some draconian scheme to demoralize me.

"Bad people do bad things because they can, Miranda. I'd give my life to see his demise. He must be stopped before his evil machinations come to a crescendo."

"A bit melodramatic isn't it commander?"

Shepard rose so sharply from her chair both it and the table toppled over, her body automatically shimmering in the glow of her biotics. "Is it? That man is one archdemon short of a blight!" She paused claiming herself with deliberate composure. She picked up both chair and table, speaking all the while: "There is no question in my mind there are some good people in Cerberus, people too caught up or too naive or too ill-informed or too desperate to see the true clear picture. People who believe the rhetoric, or feel they have no choice. But there _are_ choices."

Shepard did not retake her seat but rather stood almost apologetically for her earlier display of temper. She lowered the volume of her voice below that of a conversational tone, as if at a funeral. "If allowed to have even one-tenth of the Reaper's technology TIMy and his devoted servants will wreak such havoc in the galaxy it will parallel what the Collectors are doing now. I cannot allow for the sake of humanity. We cannot lose our humanity just for the sake of advancement, Miranda.

"If you think I am too being too melodramatic we can ask the Migrant Fleet and the family that poor boy your people 'interrogated' or Gillian Grayson and if not them, there are dozens of other colonies we can ask each of them victims of Cerberus clandestine projects."

Miranda responded with an equal measure of conversation's demeanour though growing weary of defending her beliefs of a human positive objective. "Yes Cerberus has made some hard choices not all of them good, but I told you before Cerberus goals is not intergalactic domination. Our prime directive is the betterment of humanity."

"And become less and less humane in the process. I'd rather be alien in mind and humane than human with no soul. You know the protheans once questioned if one ever truly has a choice? One of their more unpopular philosophers believed 'one can only match move by move the machinations of fate and thus defy the tyrannous stars." Shepard said.

"Is that what you believe?" Miranda asked.

"I believe in defying tyranny."


	3. Bondo

Chapter Three: BONDO

"Garrus!" Shepard grinned as soon as she walked into med bay. "Good to see up and around buddy." She moved on lighter feet than she had in a long time.

Garrus held his hands up as if to say: 'Here I am.' he was even wearing BDUs which meant he was being discharged. Shepard's eyes were drawn to the right side of his face and the flesh colored cybernetic jaw replacement and new eye. The prosthetic did more than replace a portion of the man's cheek, and jaw it also replaced an ear. The whole right side of his face was rough and raw.

"Yeah." He looked to the woman who was very nearly his sister and found the tensions leak out of him. He was going stir-crazy and she was just the person he needed at the moment. "No one will give me a mirror how bad is it?"

"Damn Garrus you were always ugly. Just slap some face paint on there and no one will know the difference." Sam said glibly.

The turian cracked up laughing then groaned. "Oohh don't make me laugh." his mandibles twitched in an avianesque grin. "You know some women like scars, granted most of those women are krogan." His comment got Shepard to snicker. "What do you think? Tali the type?"

"I think she's the Garrus type."

"You think so?"

"Absolutely. She loves you."

"I might have screwed that up." Garrus sighed then leaned his hips heavily against the footboard of the bed he had formally occupied.

"You too huh?" The spectre mirrored his stance with the next-door bed.

Garrus nodded. He looked up and saw the weary lines in Shepard's face, the dark circles under her eyes. "So what did you do?"

"Something stupid but…"

"Necessary."

"Yeah. A bit like you when you drew the fire of that god-damn gunship." Shepard's hand ran through her short black hair. A sad smile slipped past her face as the action brought with it the playful memory of Liara pleading to be allowed to cut Sam's hair. Of course the dark locks were a bit uneven and the style made her look like a thistle but Shepard actually liked the more unruly look and bits of her forelock hung across the bridge of her nose. It made her look more like a Spectre or so she told herself. "I really fucked up with Liara."

Garrus shrugged and put a hand on young woman's shoulder. "So go make it better."

"I don't think words will fix this one, Buddy." Shepard muttered shoving her idle hands into the front pockets of her BDUs trousers.

"Then just sit and let her yell at you." the hand came away and gripped the footboard behind him, taking some of the weight off his legs.

The Spectre nodded. "Sooo…you and Tali? What's up with that?" She diverted her troubles by tackling another's. It was a cheap trick but Garrus understood the need to change objectives.

"Said something very stupid. She took it badly." Garrus grunted.

"What did you say?" the dark haired woman cocked her head. She saw the weariness in the turian's face, not just the tiredness that comes from a stay in sickbay but the whole draining feeling that was birthed from bickering with the one you love.

This time his mandibles twitched in agitation. He mumbled something causing Shepard to lean in. "Say again, I didn't copy."

"I said she deserved better than a tired washed out C-Sec officer."

"Oh you didn't." Shepard rolled her cerulean eyes. "That was such a dumb-ass thing to say. Why in the hell did you say something like for?"

Garrus shrugged child-like. "I don't know. As I said I was stupid."

"Very." Shepard's eyes were drawn to his scarred right side. "So make it better." she tossed Garrus own words back at him.

"I tried. I did! But she said she didn't want to hear anything from an idiot and I was to get stuffed. I'm down to ideas of trying to bribe her with gifts but I don't know what to give her. I suppose some new tools, but that doesn't seem romantic enough. Maybe one of those hamsters but I don't know how she'll eat it…"

Shepard made a face but didn't press the issue. She didn't really want to know why giving a cute little space hamster in lieu of chocolates was a good idea. Maybe it was a turian thing. The Spectre highly doubted such an idea was a quarian thing sometimes…gift-giving doesn't translate. Whatever the case, Sam decided if he was to go that route to steer him away from the whole eat-a-space-hamster thing.

"I'm out of my depth here. Tali doesn't strike me as a flowers type of woman."

Shepard raised an eyebrow and smirked. "I actually have an idea about that. In the mean time you're going to have to make it up to her. You know the whole time you were out she stayed here." She slid her hand out of her pocket and pointed with her thumb over her shoulder to the bed behind her. "Saying she deserves better is exactly the same as saying you don't trust her judgment."

"That's ridiculous! In no way did I even hint at that." Garrus protested "Why would she think that?"

Shepard moaned in exasperation, "You kinda did give her that idea. You also hinted that she's the shallow type that won't accept a man who isn't Mr. Model-of-the-Year. She's the Garrus type, Buddy. Scars and all."

"Ah crap." He sighed. "I didn't think I said all that. She read all of that in my words?"

"Of course she did Garrus. She's a woman. And a young woman at that, so she's going to take things very sensitively and very seriously. You are her first love…well outside drive-cores."

He chuckled dryly at that last part. . "So now what?"

"Like you said you let her yell at you, you apologize and you make it better. Prove to her you're no idiot. Tell her you fell in to a stupid pocket and it took a cute quarian to pull you out of it. She'll laugh and you'll be out of trouble."

Garrus nodded. "Yeah. Easy right?" the sarcasm came thick. "So what _did _you do?"

Sam looked down at her boots then looked up through the fringe of her hair and told him what she did had done.

It took several moments before Garrus found his voice. "Ah crap. Shepard…that was one hell of a risk you took. And you said I did a dumb-ass thing." He sighed. "After everything you two have been through you tempted fate again? Please tell me you shielded." When the human didn't answer right away Garrus was now the one to respond incredulously. "Shepard! You shielded right?"

"I did. But it still touched Liara. Something will always slip through. Always touch. And…and I know she's worried, and angry, and pissed, and afraid. Making it right…is going to take more than getting a well-deserved chewing out."

"But you'd do it again." Garrus said. "Just for the off chance that T'Loak will do what you need her to do."

"Yes."

"That's…."

"Garrus, we _will_ lose this war if we don't pull everyone together." Shepard interrupted him. She sounded tired and desperate. Without her mental knowledge her body began pacing. "I told Liara once I didn't know what I was doing trying to create a galactic wide alliance. I'm no diplomat. I'm far too blunt and I don't know how to play political games. You know what she told me?

"She told me that you threaten, you cajole, you bribe, you make concessions and you make some really hard decisions." Shepard looked down whispering. "And that is exactly what I've been doing." she bit her lower lip and puffed out a hard breath of air. "And sometimes you have to dance with the devil."

"And we have two devils from which to choose." Garrus said understanding full well where the Spectre was going. He rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke. "Hell of a choice between the Pirate Queen or Cerberus. And you can't trust either one of them. Both will turn on you in a heartbeat if the opportunity is there."

"T'Loak's a pirate. I trust her to be dishonest, to use every occasion to maintain power over her dominion and to take advantage of all opportunities she sees. One of them is it to see that the galaxy remain status quo. Cerberus isn't ever going to be an option." Shepard rubbed her forehead.

"Come on, Shepard." Garrus suddenly grabbed the human's arm and began steering her towards the door of the med-bay. "Time to go make it up to our ladies."

"You do know mine can slam me into a wall with a flick of her wrist." the Spectre said.

"And mine carries a shotgun."

There was no mirth in Shepard's answering chuckle.

"Come to think of it, I think I'd rather face down another rocket." Garrus muttered darkly. "Or take on another squadron of hired goons."

"That sounds infinitely more survivable." Shepard tossed back. She rubbed the space between her eyes as if to alleviate the spell of dizziness that started to take residence behind them. She had set it aside as an after effect of Aria's meld but the vertigo was settling in for the long haul. If it didn't abate soon she'd be forced to take something for it.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME ME

Shepard leaned her forehead against the doors of the Loft. The coolness of the surface pressing into her flesh felt good against the headache lingering behind her eyes. Her head was swimming as if she had been doing shots of tequila. Once more she concluded it was because of what Aria had done to her during the mental assault. She tried to block it off from touching Liara. Her head snapped back as if hit with an upper cut and swam with pain of a biotic backlash. Gritting her teeth she rode the pain until it subsided with the dull nagging throbbing of a toothache.

"Infinitely more survivable." the dark-haired Spectre muttered to the door as the pain continued to linger. The languishing intoxicated buzzing state was far more preferable. But this was a hangover without the benefit of being drunk.

Sam didn't want to do this, didn't want to face her bondmate, her Liara - her Angel Eyes. The anger, oh the anger Sam could take, she deserved it. It was the disappointment; the pain she had placed within her Li was the unbearable part. There was only one time Sam felt this low, this miserable, was back when she was thirteen. The biotic flare-up and the migraine that followed had been so bad she nearly destroyed all the furnishings within the common room of her family quarters. Mamma had to sedate her. Young Samantha heard her father call her a freak, an accident of creation and he wanted to get rid of her by sending her to some secret training facility and pretend she wasn't his daughter or that he even had one.

'Nothing ever got done by avoiding it.' Sam chided herself.

The Spectre opened the doors half-expecting to be pointedly ignored or told to get out. She was prepared for a barrage of anger and tears, and accusations. What she didn't expect was a very drunk bondmate sitting on the floor. Liara was watching the hypnotic mindless swimming of the fish in the tank directly across from her. By the prothean expert's hip were two empty bottles of elasa, known as 'Sorrow's Companion' in the basic human tongue. There was a third in her limp azure hand. How her bondmate was still upright…well…mostly upright Sam didn't know.

"You're drunk." the Spectre said.

Well that explained everything, why there was a backlash when she tried to shield Liara from the unsettling sensations. It was impossible to shield another from themselves.

Liara took a sip from the bottle. "Pretty much, yes. You going to make something out of it?"

Sam shook her head. She really didn't have the right to say anything, hell she wanted to get drunk if she wasn't already vicariously feeling so. Liara wasn't the only one who became drunk due to a lover's actions.

Lying on the sofa was none other but Tali, passed out by the looks of it. And well she should be for she seemed to have attempted to match drink for drink with Liara. Two wasted bottles of tripled filtered turian brandy were near the foot of the couch.

"Oh my." the words slipped past her lips as she tipped-toed to the sofa bent down and picked up one of the empty bottles. "How did she become so drunk?" Her eyebrows formed a V as she narrowed her eyes and plucked from the quarian's limp hand a straw. "What on earth… is that a straw?"

"Emergency induction port." Liara corrected flippantly.

"It's a straw."

"Does it matter what it's called? It has served its purpose." Liara challenged.

"Guess you're right." Shepard relented and dropped the straw on to the floor were it bounced end-on-end before it rolled under the sofa.

"I'm right about a lot of things. I'm right about that…that woman…that…bitch-whore whose…whose…corrupting you. She is bad influence on you, Samantha. I do not like her." Liara growled.

A thin black eyebrow rose to the level of Sam's forelock. It was so rare that Liara engaged in profanity that it was a shock to hear it even still. "Bitch-whore? You mean Aleena?"

"Who other?" the words were darkly spoken. Sam watched as her bondmate took the bottle in hand and drank deeply from its mouth. "It's bad enough she is going to be Shiala's bondmate but…now that you have been adopting her as…as….as….some sort of mentor is intolerable!"

Shepard looked away for a moment wincing at the unnatural character of her wife. She slid to the floor next to the very drunk asari and kept schooled the expression of indignity of on Liara's countenance.

"It wasn't Aleena who…"

"You are going to defend her? To me? Now?" Liara pinned Samantha with a baleful glare.

Shepard opened her mouth then snapped it closed it with the click of her teeth. "No."

Liara took another drink.

There was a long deep breath of silence before it was shattered by slurred questions. "What does she bring to the table, but to train you to be false to yourself? She's turning you into something you're not!"

Sam let out a growled breath of heated air. "'You cajole, you bribe, you make concessions and you make some really hard decisions.' That's what you told me I should do. And I am, Liara. Some of those decisions work in the battlefield, but they don't work in a marriage. I'm sorry." Sam said softly. "I can't keep the battlefield from touching you Liara or our marriage. What's coming on the horizon with the Reapers..." the Spectre sighed heavily. "I'm worried, Angel Eyes. Sometimes I feel as if there are no battlements to secure, no to lines to hold, no ground to take back or foothold to seize and I am adrift in space. That isn't a good place for a commander…" then more darkly, more guiltily Samantha added: "or a bondmate."

Liara was silent.

Sam reached out her hand – a fraction of a second later the cool kiss of glass was slapped into her palm. The dark haired human began to lift the bottle to her lips but stopped and settled it instead in her lap. Blue eyes looked to the label: _**Elasa**_.

"Sorrow's Companion. Kind of appropriate isn't it?" Misery echoed in Samantha's voice. "Liara, I am so…so…sorry." she started to peel the label from the bottle her eyes unfocusingly gaze on the eloquent calligraphy of Asarian script. "If I could keep you from pain I would, I'd keep misery and sorrow from ever touching you, Li. But I don't have that power. I will never have that power." she sighed. "I know you don't like Aleena."

Liara rolled her eyes and scoffed.

"Sometimes you have to step into the shadows and do a little evil to do a greater good. It's like back on that asteroid with Terra Nova. I killed Cham because he was a fucking slaver. He wanted another Mindoir, another Elysium. I wasn't about to let that go. I saw it; he was willing to negotiate, willing to walk away. I knew I could make him leave with just words. I wouldn't do it. I couldn't let him go. Not for the crimes he was committing.

"Slavery is abomination. So I killed him. And his men. You were there. And then Balak…" the bottle in Sam's hands was nearly stripped of its label. Parts of it lay on the human's lap in shreds of damp coiled pulp. "Mother-fracking bastard!" Tears started to stream down Sam's face. "I let him go because he had hostages. I wanted to kill him; I wanted to see his fracking head explode into a pulpy mass.

"I had those lives in my hands. And he knew how to play me. I let him go. And he's going to return and he's going to try to do the same thing again to some other human colony…"

A blue hand reached out and stopped the fidgeting caramel ones. Sam didn't raise her head, her eyes focusing now in the blue fingers covering the back of her hand. "I know I've been treading in the lines of shadows lately. This thing with Lawson—using Oriana as I've been doing." the commander took in a great breath of air and slowly expelled it. "And Aria…and Aleena…and…." She stopped talking suddenly. It was as if her mind could not construct the words for her mouth to form, until: "The things I made Aria do. Let her do. And I didn't tell you. And I used you too. I—I used your gut reaction to what was going to happen."

"Is this when you tell me it was necessary?" Liara hissed snatching her hand back. The anger and frustration more than evident on her young sapphire freckled face. The bond screamed with it.

Sam shook her head. Fingers once more continued their robotic assault on the bottle's label.

"I understand why _Commander _Shepard didn't say anything. But why didn't my Samantha?"

Shepard looked up, staring now at the fish within the tank anywhere but her wife's eyes. "There are times, I can't be both." she looked back to the bottle now completely stripped of the label that lay in tatters on her lap and floor. She snorted realizing the unintended physical metaphor before her.

"You married a military woman, Liara. Sometimes I can't be both."

"It's a trivial risk isn't it?" Liara muttered. "When it all comes down to it."

Shepard dared to look over her shoulder to the woman she held most dear in her heart, in her soul. Liara was her soul's ease, the quiet in the storm. Liara was everything. And there was one thing Shepard didn't know how to do and that was how _not_ to protect her. Now that instinct, that need had wounded their marriage.

"Like stealing the _Normandy_." Liara continued. "Had we been caught you and the rest of the Alliance military personnel would have been court martialed. The rest of us imprisoned. And Anderson executed for the capital offense. All of us might have faced the firing squad. But to stop Saren we did it. And we did a lot of things that stepped over a few lines. 'A little evil to do a greater good.'

"I supposed that's what it means to be a Spectre. No one really thinks about it. The rest of us only think you are not bound to the restrictions to follow the laws or regulations but you do have a code of sorts, almost like a Justicar. You will do what it takes to complete your mission." Liara sighed. "I get why you have to do these things, Samantha. I truly do. I understand this."

Liara shifted so now she was kneeling before her bondmate, her eyes staring deeply into the other set of blue, her hands on either side of the human's cheeks. "And I told you once before I don't need a protector and I don't want one! I want YOU Samantha." She rested her forehead against the younger woman's "Whether you're a pure paragon of virtue or you tread in shadows or if you slip entirely into the dark. I want you. But I want to be a part of you!"

The archaeologist pulled up and away. She might have gone to her feet if Liara didn't know that in her drunken state her feet would betray her and send her tumbling back to the floor. "I want to be a part of the decisions you make. And you can't do what you did with Aria and exclude me. Commander or bondmate: you don't get to choose. I accepted you one-in-and-the-same. And you have to accept me as one-in-and-the-same: bondmate and crewmate." this time she did rise. Her back turned to Samantha. "You can't exclude me. Not when…not when it touches us both. You can't do that. Not any more."

Sam just nodded.

"And here's another thing."

"Yeah." the human's face was dejected and chagrined. The sound was only a whisper.

"You said you wanted marriage, old age and a lot of little blue children."

Again a nod from the dark haired woman, there was fear now growing as a weed within her mind; in her soul that Liara would suddenly decided little blue children were out of the question or worse. ...their marriage was…over.

"Well what if I want pink ones?"

That snapped the Spectre's head up. The question utterly flummoxed her. It was something she absolutely did not expect. It hit her like a 45 mm. shot between the eyes. Pink? "Huh?" was as loquaciously eloquent as Sam could muster.

"Pink ones…or…or…lightly tanned ones. Whatever. You ones. Human ones!" Liara was eminently determined. She folded her arms under her chest unintentionally or at the very least unknowingly mimicking 'the commander's pose.' "When the time comes, I want human babies. Your babies. We are going to have human babies." The tone in her voice said there was absolutely no room for negotiation, she had made the decision and that was that.

Samantha opened and closed her mouth.

"That is the decision. That is what we are doing. The bloodline of Shepard should not die out."

"I…ah…um…oh…oh…okay…" Shepard frowned suddenly as a thought etched its way from her hindbrain to the forefront. "Li, what if I can't carry them? There has been a lot of damage to me. I'm partly cybernetic now."

"Are you unwilling to try?" a glare.

"No." Sam locked her legs around the bottle in her lap and held her hands up in surrender. "No. I didn't say that. I just…I didn't think…I am…shutting up now. I am really shutting up. Yep this is me shutting up."

Liara smirked triumphantly. "Your mind my love is running a million klicks an hour you are not shutting up."

"I'm…I'm…I'm still processing. Um okay pink babies. Pink babies are good. One or two-sure."

"You want lot of blue babies and I get one or two pink?"

"Liara…" Sam set the bottle of wine aside and stood up to meet her bondmate's gaze. "Let's just find out if I can still have them. But yeah. Goddess yeah! Okay. But you know it doesn't work the same with humans."

Liara cocked a half indulgent smile. "You do not think I know how duel-sexed species mate? Even with artificial insemination? Or that we can end up with a son rather than a daughter? I am not a dull stone, Samantha."

"Never said you were. Thought never crossed my mind. But as for the possibility of having a boy, are you sure you're okay with that?"

"Of course I am. What kind of question is that? You actually think that because I am monogendered I am a sexist? Honestly Samantha, I'm a little disappointed if you thought that. That word has no meaning to asari."

"I know and of course I didn't think that, Li. It's just…"

Liara waved the potential argument off. "Doesn't matter. What does is if we have a son, then we have a son. I'm fully prepared for that. I will love him for he is _our_ child. And I've been thinking we should look for potential sperm donors on the Salish side of your ancestry."

"Um…okay. Why?"

Liara slinked forward touching Samantha's dark locks with a delicate touch before running her cerulean fingers along her high cheek bones and touching the splash of freckles that ran along under her eyes and bridge of her nose. "Because you have very lovely features, striking in fact. And that blood should not die out; that culture should not die out because of the amalgamation of your world's dominant races. Our children be they pink or blue will know it."

Shepard nodded. "No wonder my mother adores you. You know there are times when you're the 'favourite daughter'?"

Liara laughed. Then more seriously she took hold of her bondmate's face and kissed the soft ruby lips. "I know my pink babies will have to wait until the war is over. I'm okay with that too." She smiled softly.

"I love you, Liara." Samantha said with all the passion, and adoration she held for this wonderful woman before her. The bond exploded with it.

Purple lips took red. "Show me." Liara began pushing Sam towards their bed but met with some resistance. There was a slight hurt expression on the young maiden's face until she followed her bondmate's line of sight. Sam's furtive glance to the passed out quarian on the sofa explained all.

"Don't worry she'll be out for hours. Tali is what you humans call a 'light weight.' She downed a bottle and a half of turian brandy; she won't be getting up anytime soon. I'm surprised she didn't get sick. She'll have one hell of a hangover come the morning." She kissed Samantha once more, biting the lower ruby lip causing the human to moan just as she wanted. "Besides all that time on ground side camps we've learned how to be quiet." Liara purred, her left hand cupping the underside of Samantha's breast as her right continued to stroke a light caramel cheek with the pad of her thumb. She trailed the digit across Sam's lips which opened ever so slightly, softly kissing it.

The Spectre slid forward, her lips close to the delicate inner folds along the asari's neck. "Such an exquisite neck." she trailed kisses upwards along Liara's jaw. "So beautiful… sculpted perfection."

The prothean expert sucked-in a sharp breath—expelled in wanting moan. She felt a smile on her flesh Sam's hands slipped to hips to rest along the thighs, as she shifted to other side of Liara's neck her tongue flicking out tasting the innermost folds.

Her hand flared with a small glow of biotic power, she whispers softly in the asari's ear "Let me show you my love." Her hand trailed down the spine to the lower reaches near the bottom and sent the soft pulse of energy directly on top of azure. Currents of biotic energy hit every nerve ending along the spine causing Liara to gasp suddenly.

Without seeing, fingers deftly made quick work to shed interfering clothing which became scattered and carelessly strewn across the floor of the quarters. Soft moans escape as the lips continue on their journey, and hands shimmering with biotic energy gently caress the now exposed skin. Starting at the small of Sam's back causing a slight moan of pleasure escape before slowly working their way upwards tracing every muscle fiber stimulating every nerve.

Two bodies simmered in the glowing light of biotics. Liara returned kiss for kiss, touch for touch. Her own lips lower to the now exposed neckline of her beloved, lips softly brushing the skin where neck meets shoulder. Cerulean eyes became obsidian, unquenchable liquid fire turned wanton blood into molten need.

Azure fingers slowly trailed along tanned thighs in tiny sensual circles. Possessive fingers slid up from hip around to the back to shoulder blade, gently caressing the outline of the human's shapely body. Teeth set together as a hiss of pure pleasure left the lungs.

Human and asari minds touched, meeting in the middle, reflecting the blissful sensations back gasps escape slightly parted lips as the reflection bathes them in sensations reach new heights once joined, feeling every place where the bodies touch. The bond ignited deeper more passionate kisses along the slender neck, feeling the pulse racing beneath hungry lips.

'_Goddess_.' is thought but not said it is sent, pleasure ripples directly to the core of the soul, consuming guiding yielding and demanding. Wanting to give, wanting to receive, mind fully open, tendrils of energy follow tanned fingertips of one hand brushing along her inner thighs, the other hand under the crest. Ruby lips taking sweet offerings of her mouth, tongue seeking entrance, one leg shifts between the thighs where fingers once danced, allowing the freed hand to cup the underside of sapphire buttocks.

Sam took the cue, the hand once holding the perfect backside now slithers along the toned muscles seeking the heated entrance. Fingertips tease the lower lips with tiny biotic pulses, they flicker upon the ghostly touch of butterfly wings until one then two fingers enter the slick wetness. The Spectre's thumb brushed against the hardened nub, her desire flares within the link sending it directly into Liara's divine blue rose. The fingers slide in dancing but it is the link, the velvet touch of minds which become ablaze with want that generates the white lighting within.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Tali felt her head explode.

Her ears thundered with each heartbeat. And her stomach last time she saw it was a mass relay ago and it was trying to come back in full-force. Left arm pinned under her body was numb and lost all feeling. Her right arm wasn't too happy with her either having hung off the sofa for several hours without moving.

For a moment she panicked as she did not recognize the floor she was currently staring at. Spotting two bottles of turian brandy it all came flooding back making her headache all that more malevolently spiteful. So this was a hangover.

'Keelah," she grumbled trying to get to her feet but all she managed to do was roll over on her arse landing unceremoniously on the bottles which scattered across the floor in a tonal menagerie of clinking and clanging.

"Ehe?" a muffled sound came from the bed. "Tali that you?" It was Shepard.

Apparently the commander had made up with Liara. By the look of the uniforms haphazardly scattered in little pools of cloth the make-up was enthusiastically embraced. Well wasn't that just perfect. They had sex while she was passed out on the sofa. Liara gets her girl but Tali was without her bosh'tet of a guy. That's just bloody fracking perfect.

"How are you feeling?" the words were sleepily said not from the Spectre but from Liara.

"Fine." the girl lied trying to find where she had misplaced her sense of balance. By her second attempt the quarian made it to her unsteady feet, which caused a brand new wave of nausea to pugilisticly bully itself from her head to the pit of her stomach.

If she was going to crash again the young engineer wanted it to be in her own rack. The way she was feeling Tali was having strong considerations about heading off to sickbay despite what Chakwas might have to say about her midnight bender. Where she didn't want to be was in the same quarters with the snuggled up couple on the bed who had apparently fallen back asleep. So much for their deep concerns over her welfare...

Half-hooded eyes cast a near jealous glance towards the bed. The quarian saw Liara's head resting comfortably on Sam's left shoulder with her blue cheek pillowed on the human's breast whose arms encircled her bondmate.

"Must be nice." Came a mumbled response before the engineer's ambled on a wobbling crooked path to the doors of the Loft and finally to the lift.

She didn't actually recall hitting the buttons to command the elevator to go down several decks; she only remembered getting into the car. Her head was pounding with each breath she took and each breath brought on unwelcome vertigo and the reflexive desire to vomit. It came as quite a shock when the doors opened to reveal Garrus standing there.

Whatever deck he intended to get to quickly vacated his itinerary once Tali nearly toppled into his arms.

"I'm going to be sick." She mumbled.

"Tali, by the Spirits…what wrong?"

"Sick." she slurred.

"I'll get you to Chakwas! Is it a suit rupture?" he started frantically to frisk her looking for any tear but thus far he found nothing, which made him all the more panicked. "What happened? Where were you? Why didn't anyone help you?"

"Too loud." she protested and put a hand up to his mouth. "Shuussh."

"Tali what happened?!" he would not be silenced.

"You sound like a vorcha." she cursed. "Too many questions…Keelah" she held her stomach. "Ooh, I'm going to be sick."

"Damn slow thing! Come on. Come on!" Garrus stabbed his finger repeatedly into the button for the crew deck. "Hang on Tali. Okay, I'm getting you to Dr. Chakwas."

"Not _that_ kind'a'ick," she moaned trying to push away at his pawing. "Other sick."

"Other sick?" Garrus was all but carrying her now.

"I said shhhh." the quarian whimpered.

Then it stuck the turian. Tali wasn't suffering from a suit rupture, it was a hangover. And if she was going to be sick-that could be very messy inside her helmet. "I'll…er…get you to a clean room. Just hang on a bit more."

The lift doors opened one deck below the crew deck where all the R&D labs were located. Of the three clean rooms, the smallest was generally held in reserve for Tali by the order of the Spectre, for her use be it emergency or general hygiene maintenance. Of course being such Garrus had to support Tali was they waited for the decontamination cycle to finish in the airlock between the labs before the doors unsealed.

"Oh Keelah…" Tali groaned making a hard swallowing sound behind her mask "I don't think I can hold it down." she lurched trying to get her hood.

"Oh for the love of Spirits hurry up!" Garrus bitched to the computer telling them to "Please stand by. You are about to enter a clean room, please ensure you have observed all safety precautions before entering. Be advised this is a hazmat zone"

"I know that already." Garrus snarled at the Normandy's VI. In his worry he had nearly forgotten to jump into one of the enviro-suits, no need to tell the damn computer that though. Grudgingly he hit the command panel that opened a recessed compartment containing white and blue hazmat suits that could be worn over standard issued hardsuits and BDUs. He propped Tali against the far wall as he shrugged the damn thing on and placed a respirator over his mouth.

"Cycle complete Thank you for your cooperation" The pneumatic doors finally slid open with an air-compressed hiss.

"You really need to overhaul that thing one day, Tali. I swear it's becoming more annoying by the …" the turian faulted mid-sentence as he witnessed Tali rush past him, tear at the seals behind her hooded helmet, drop her faceplate which clattered on the metallic floor and promptly vomit. "…day." he finished lamely.

He heard soft weeping as he stepped closer to the woman he loved.

"I'm…I'm…so sorry." Tali hiccuped wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Garrus still had not seen her face as he was coming up behind her. "You have nothing to be sorry about. It happens." the timbre in his voice purred soothingly.

"But…But this isn't how I wanted you to see me for the first time." Tali moaned still trying to hide under her hood.

When she vomited again he was there to hold her head. He leaned the back of her small frame against his sturdier one, his free arm snaking around her middle to further give her support.

"I made a mess." she muttered.

"Don't worry about it, I'll get it. Come on Love let's get you cleaned up."

"Love?" Tali looked up causing Garrus to gasp.

He never imagined her more beautiful. What was most striking were her large almond shaped silver eyes. They had an almost iridescent glow to them. Her face…was asarinoid or humanoid depending on who you asked. Her nose was slightly longer and narrower than either of the other two species. But her features were very similar to both. She even had eyebrows like a human though they were thinner and had an upwards slant to them. Her light lilac skin was marked in thin black strips almost like an Earth tiger. Peeking from under the helmet he saw traces of black fur…no not fur it was hair like a humans.

"You're…beautiful…" his mouth stumbled awkwardly around the syllables. He felt his breath stop in his lungs and his heart stop beating. He stood and stared, he couldn't even move it was as if he had become encased in carbonate such was the power of her beauty.

Tali found her lips smiling despite her stomach, and headache. She felt very far away from being beautiful,

"Yes." Garrus found his voice once more. "You are my love. Aren't you?"

She meekly nodded. Then began to weep all over again. Garrus easily shifted their position away from the mucky puddle on the floor and cradled the shuddering quarian in his arms

"I am sooo sorry." she continued to repeat the apology over and over.

"I told you have nothing to be apologetic for, I made you mad remember? I'm the one supposed to be saying I'm sorry here, not you." the turian tried to break past her guilt.

"But I ruined everything." there was no consoling her.

"Well I'll admit I did envision something very different for seeing you, touching you for our first time. But right now, I don't care." With the pad of his gloved thumb he wiped away the tears trailing down pale lavender cheeks. "Can you stand now?"

When the young engineer nodded her head, Garrus gingerly raised them both to their feet. "Go take a shower; get cleaned so you feel a hundred percent quarian again, and I'll take care of that." he tilted his head to indicate the pool of vomit on the floor.

Her face flushed a deep purple at the thought of him cleaning up after her mess. Seeing the protest on her red lips he again shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Honey. I got it." he repeated.

"Garrus…" sliver eyes leaked more tears. But there was a smile on her lips now that wasn't there before. "I love you."

The former C-Sec officer's mandibles twitched in a version of the ear to ear grin. Hell he'd clean up a hundred pools of vomit if only to hear Tali say those words again. Besides that he reasoned it was his penance for upsetting her so much that she sought solace in a brandy bottle in the first place. He had heard that she had disappeared into the Loft with Liara last night. He couldn't explain why he was both unconcerned and worried at the same time. It didn't make any sense to him then and it didn't make any more sense to him now. He was glad she had not drunk alone and that Liara was there for her. No doubt Shepard felt the same about her own lifemate.

Lifemate?

Is that what Tali was now? Not officially of course but his brain didn't exactly rebel against the idea. In fact the very thought of the word made him giddy. Giddy? Since when did a turian warrior become giddy. He smiled once more and set about to clean cleaning up the biological spill. Since he fell in love that's when. He used to ridicule his brother turians when they were what Vakarian termed 'gone all squishy' when they spoke to their lovers. He recalled one such couple shopping at one of the souvenir shops at the Citadel back in his C-Sec days.

'_Why would I want a model ship? I'm an engineer, Honey I work on them all day. How is a model supposed to remind me of the citadel?'_

"_Honey? Phft what kind of turian calls his mate Honey" Garrus scoffed privately as he continued to listen to the couple argue in the souvenir shop._

'_It's festive. Okay then if not a model how about a fish?' the asari asked hanging on to his arm. _

"_A fish? Really? They die."_

"_Then it's important to treasure the time you have with it." the bondmate said._

'_Is this the lifespan talk again? We're not going into the lifespan talk. Honey, look I just want to spend my time here with you, okay? I don't want a model ship, and I don't want a fish."_

"_But that little ship is so cute."_

"_Ships aren't cute, they are…' a sigh 'Okay Honey, I'll get a ship.' _

"_Weak." Garrus thought to himself. "Imagine buckling like that just because some woman smiles at you. Grow a pair buddy." _

_He saw the asari matron bounce on the balls of her feet as she reached up and kissed her bondmate on his cheek which he indulgently returned by nuzzling the top of her crest. The young man shook his head which caught the other turian's eyes._

'_Wait until you find yours, boy. When you do, you won't' mind it at all. You'll do a lot of things you didn't think you would just to see that gorgeous smile.' he kissed his lover on her crest again and walked out of the shop with her with as much pride as a frontline general. _

'_Oh leave him alone my husband; it's evidently clear he's still in his maiden stage. He's into dalliances not permanent bond material.'_

'_Turians don't have maiden stages, Honey.' The male said as they continued to walk along the streets of the Presidium._

'_Sure you do. You simply refer to it as adolescence. Same thing.' A blue hand waved in the air dismissing the difference of semantics._

At the time when he had overheard the two talking Garrus had thought the turian male had gone all soft and squishy, reduced to a puddle because a woman smiled at him. But now…now he understood, just like the older male said he would. Here he was on his knees cleaning up vomit and not being disgusted by it, only greatly concerned over Tali's welfare. The former C-Sec officer's greatest desire was to ensure Tali was alright, that she find no cause to shed more tears in sorrow. He wanted her happy and safe. If she wanted to present him with silly gifts because they were cute he'd accept especially in return he caught a glimpse of that smile, that wonderful, glorious smile he had been blessed to see.

That wasn't being squishy or weak; it was being a loving devoted partner. That was hardcore, nothing soft about it. Look at Shepard. She was as hardcore as they come but one look, one touch from Liara and the Specter was all goo. You have to be very strong and self-assured to allow another to kindle that sort reaction willingly. Now he finally and truly understood how and why the fires burned brightly between Shepard and Liara. Now he was fortunate to not only see, but to touch that brightness, that glory. It came in the beautiful lilac face of a young energetic little quarian. And that smile…that smile… Was there ever a more glorious sight in the entire universe than Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy's _smile? He didn't think so.

When Tali finally emerged from the clean room's shower facilities she noted the mess she had made was now gone and Garrus was sporting a pale blue hazmat suit rather than the prior white one he had previously donned. No doubt in effort to retain the environment of clean room's sanitation. Any residual elements of the solvents used to clean the biological spill or remnants of the spill itself compromised the room's safety measures.

For herself Tali wore set of medical scrubs, taking in the very rare luxury of being freed from her suit. It was the only place (outside such rooms aboard on the flotilla) she felt comfortable removing her suit. It wasn't something she had on the original _Normandy,_ but on the SR-2 was equipped with thee R&D labs, two of them with clean rooms. Officially of course it was documented open to the science corps, however Shepard made sure Tali had access to the smallest of them almost exclusively for her private use. Not that the scientists had much use for it as the larger of the two was more efficiently placed between the labs, whereas the smallest was tucked away as if it was walk-in-closet.

If Tali was grateful before for the near exclusive use clean lab she was more so now, especially for what she had planned.

She had everything she wanted to say set in her mind, she had rehearsed each word each sentence even her body language in the shower. Now once she saw Garrus all the preparation felt as if it had been sucked out the airlock. She had nothing. No words, no asari-eqsue saunter, nothing, a blank. On top of it all she felt heat rushing to her face.

"Tali?" And he was there all of a sudden at her side.

"I had every thing I wanted to say planned out. You know I even had this whole thing planned out. A proper date… Well not this, this, another this. You know what I mean. I even downloaded some music on an OSD but I didn't know what you liked. And now I'm babbling like an idiot." She lowered her head, her silver eyes glued to her bare feet and the white tiles beneath them.

Garrus smiled. "You're cute when you're flustered." he moved forward and raised her chin. "Tali, it's okay."

She shook her head implying she disagreed. "I…I want to feel your skin against mine." she uttered so softly it was but a wisp of sound.

Without a word or question whether or not his quarian love was sure-was positive the former C-Sec officer watched as Tali unlocked the seals of his glove to the suit. His blue eyes danced in astonishment as watched her take his taloned fingers within her own, smaller one. Her three fingers were smaller, more delicate than his and much softer. He half expected them to be as calloused as any other engineers then chastised himself for the thought. Of course they would be soft, they had been hidden and protected behind gloves for the majority of his love's life. There was no blemish, no scarring, they were perfect.

With two fingers she traced the back of his hand, first along his fingers, across the knuckles and drew small circles along the hand itself to his thumb. Softly as a spoken whisper she turned his hand over and begin her path anew along his palm, wrist, thumb and fingers. The gentle touch almost tickled if not for the sensuousness of her skin upon his.

He drew his breath in quick and felt the whole of his body respond. He swallowed hard and lost himself in the glory of silver eyes and a hesitant smile of on ruby lips. He almost whimpered when Tali let go of his hand for the want of her simple touch. He watched those magical digits reach for his respirator and unfasten the straps that bound it around head. Without ceremony Tali tossed it to the floor where it bounced once and rolled across the tiles in a lopsided journey to rest against her face plate that was still laying on the tiles.

A pink tongue darted viper swift out of satin lips before they touched his cleft leonine muzzle.

The touch was bubbles in champagne; it buckled the knees and warmed the belly. The kiss stopped the heart and blocked air from the lungs. It was stars and bliss there was no other touch in the all the worlds in the universe but this one.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

No one listened to her. No one moved to stop this. So many lives lost, so much death, if they had only listened. Why didn't they listen?! She knew they were coming, had foreseen it within the beacons. She screamed until she was hoarse but they wouldn't budge. She pushed them as hard as she could-

Now the galaxy was burning.

Fire. A flood of flames, all-devouring—

The world was consumed by it, swallowed whole by the infernal plague. Choking black smoke billowed above her head in a cloying haze.

That land, the city once beautiful so ancient, so old now torn apart by jagged metallic teeth, biting in to the flesh and bone earth. Screams rose up, screams of the world, screams of the hundred billion souls ripped from life. Hundreds, thousands of bodies impaled upon spikes, ribbons of blood coiling around the dragon's teeth like macabre garlands.

Swarms of biting clouds of insectiod minions swirled around organic life, stilling bodies in terrified muted screams. They were coming—the slaves of the Reaper-harvesting, collecting leaving none. Warriors cried out in battle, in death, millions dead already. There was no end to the swarms, no end to the collectors. Amongst them hulking abominations, prowling, devouring tearing—destroying-ripping life and soul from victims leaving only husks, who rose up and hunted their own, betraying them to their new masters-the Reapers.

-and _craa-ack!_

She froze, and heard a massive shattering of stone followed by the thick, ponderous steps of someone who must be huge more massive than any krogan moving through the streets past the tenements, the sounds deliberate and thundering.

_He must weigh a ton, oh Goddess tell me that wasn't a wall being torn apart—_

She shot a look down the small alleyway between the gutted rubble of the buildings. She could feel the violence radiating off him in invisible waves. She could just make out sickly gray blur of a face, the sloping skull—and quite suddenly, she was certain that he was a monster, a killer with black mulish fists, each as big as a turian's head. In one meaty paw he held a broken-desecrated blue body. If she could just make out the face.

No-she didn't want to see it, didn't want know. Even though she knew who it was the monster tore apart. Her heart hammered flooding her ears with the pulse of her own blood.

_Shoot! Shoot it!_

The creature took one massive step toward her on tree-trunk legs, and she heard the crunch of pulverized stone beneath its clawed feet, and saw the black eyes, black and rimmed with red. Like lava-filled pits in a misshapen white boulder, blank but not at all blind, its gaze found hers-and it raised one meaty clenched fist, the threat unmistakeable.

_-firefirefirefirefirefire_-

She raised her hands sending out shockwaves. One, two, three explosive bursts of biotic energy and she saw the impact—a flap of its skin blew from its chest just above the diaphragm, the second wave slicing though one side of the neck—and it took another step, not a flicker of expression passing over its rough-hewn features, the fist still raised, seeking a target, seeking to crush—

The black, smoking hole in its chest and neck were not bleeding.

_Oh SHIT!_

In a rush of adrenaline-boosted dread, she rose aimed her hands at the creature's heart and sent warps repeatedly, the giant taking another step, striding into the stream of explosive biotic fire without flinching-

-and she lost track of the shots, unable to believe it could still be coming, less than ten feet away as the biotic energy streamed from her into its mammoth chest—

-A singularity and it still kept coming-

From the haze of smoke and forest of carcases strode the smaller shape-recognizable, a huntress.

Shepard stopped and stood before her. "_You'd better wake up now before it really gets bad_."

Aria's eyes snapped open.


	4. Preconceived Prejudice

Chapter Four: Preconceived Prejudice

"Who is calling at this ungoddessly hour?" Tevos complained into her pillow. Maybe if she ignored it the insistent buzzing of her FTL comm it would simply stop and whoever was inconsiderate enough to call at this unholy hour would get the hint.

Several rings latter…

…apparently not.

Half tempted to slam the offensive device into oblivion via a biotic pulse; the Councillor squashed the youngling impulse and slipped a sheer silk robe over her nude form and answered it instead.

"Yes?" she all but snapped not waiting for the holographic representation of whoever it was on the other side of the line to appear. When Aria's visage shimmered into view the Council suppressed a slight smile etching its way on to her face. The Pirate Queen always brought a giddy guilty pleasure to her. She had ever since-well a long time ago.

"Aria, what can I do for you?"

"That's a swift turn of the voice." The Queen gently teased. "Sorry to have to wake you, Tevos but this is important."

"Must be, you never give a social call, even to update me on our daughter."

"Liselle is fine. Hale and hearty." Aria answered. "I suspect your informants already keep you well appraised about her."

"Perhaps. But it's nice to hear it from her mother's own lips. So this important matter you brought up, what is it?" the councillor rubbed a hand along her neck in the attempted to mead out the kinks.

"One of your Spectres is making a bit of a noise here."

"Let me guess, it is Shepard. What has she done?" there was a tiredness in Tevos's voice that had nothing to do with her interrupted sleep.

"Other than riling up three of the major mercenary groups in the Terminus Systems and starting a personal war with Cerberus, you mean? She's very adamant, obsessively so in her quest to put an end to the Reaper threat."

Tevos sighed. Her hand shifted from her neck to rub the space between her eyes feeling the tension already beginning to build. "She has come to you now? I suppose it was too much to hope she'd be distracted by her missions to hunt down the last remnants of the geth and tracking down prothean relics. Ever Since Eden Prime she has not yield her stance on this Reaper threat.

"Tell me."

"Agent Shepard has been touched by prothean beacons; they marked her and it very nearly killed her. They were designed for a prothean mind but she was able to withstand their influence where a weaker mind would have been completely overcome. Our investigators found such a man on Eden Prime who apparently had also been touched by it. He's nothing but a blithering idiot now. Quite mad. He had to be institutionalized, I fear. One might go as far to say the beacon also opened the door to Saren's fall.

"You see, it implanted Shepard, Saren and this human man with ancient memories of the lost race. They are so ingrained in this device's stored memories that all three of them believed these visions to be true. These memories are what drove Saren to turn traitor and side with the geth because he saw no hope of surviving the supposed coming war with these Reapers. The repurposed Reaper ship reclaimed by the geth indoctrinated Saren and Matriarch Benezia and all her huntresses, Saren's krogan minions.

"As for Shepard, it drove her to extraordinary lengths to make a resistance against this threat of a parahistorical theoretical enemy. We ordered her to stop Saren's rampage and she did. She saved our lives, yes against the threat of the geth. But there is no clear evidence that the Reapers are a true threat beyond their derelict vessels being reclaimed and used by enemy forces and in Shepard's tormented memoirs.

"I've touched Shepard's mind…"

"As have I. Her memories are mingled yes, but her warnings are honest ones." Aria interrupted her former lover. "I ripped that knowledge from her mind. Tevos, I didn't simply meld with her. I went deeper and took what I wanted."

Astounded at the news the matriarch could only stare at the pirate queen. "You what?!"

"You heard me. And you know when you go that deep with such brutality the mind can not conceal the honest truth. Shepard doesn't just _believe_ the Reapers are real, they are real and they _are_ returning. They do so every fifty thousand years. I think you know it too. Question is what are _you_ going to do about it?" Aria's hologram crossed her arms over her chest.

Tevos sighed. "Shepard has put us in a very difficult position. Impossible really."

"You mean the fact you denied and covered up her claims and now have to admit she's telling the truth. Tevos, how fucking difficult will your position be when the Reapers do get here, start burning worlds and the news gets out that well fuck me, Shepard was telling the truth along. Everyone will believe The Council just sat on their asses _again_ instead of making preparations. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Isn't that what you did when Saren and that damn ship of his-a Reaper if I'm not mistaken attacked the Citadel? Way I hear it _my _daughter's sire owes her life to Shepard as does the rest of your precious Council. "

"Uniting the galaxy to fight as one will be monumental impossibility, Aria. Do you actually think the krogan will go to war with us, for us after what happened during the Rebellions? The asari have been down that road before we can not afforded to do so again. Should a summit be called the asari can not and will not make an appearance. History is a strict mistress. We learn from it or we will be crushed by it.

"Then there are the other races to consider. You don't actually believe the quarians will come to our aid? They've been fighting a cold war with the geth for three centuries, which will not end any time soon. They will never give us aid.

"And how about the Terminus Systems? The vorcha, batarians and the other races that calls that part of space home; they will never make an alliance with the Citadel Systems unless we make impossible concessions to their demands. The allowance of free slavery being one of them as well as trade in narcotics. No one government has the resources to spare to give that kind of aid to another world. It is impossible."

"Impossible?" Aria snorted in contempt "I believe you have a Spectre that specializes in doing the impossible. Set Shepard to the task. On the plus side it will shut her up. On a smaller scale concentrate efforts on Thessia, order the Matriarchy to start construction on underground vaults to bunker our people when the shit storm hits. Start stockpiling emergency resources across our colonies, harden the lines of our communications and step up defences. And make a token task force to handle issues of Reaper tech used as a weapon and let the other Council members know you're doing this. They will follow suite and their own governments will have the responsibility to oversee the protection and survival of their own people. But to do nothing just because you will lose face by admitting Shepard is right is idiotic at best. And you know it."

"I will…considerate it." Tevos uttered softly. Her voice raised in a pitch filled with curiosity. "Why are you championing this human, Aria? I thought you cared little for Spectres."

"Oh I wouldn't say that. Vasir is a good toss in between the sheets."

Tevos frowned. Aria grinned.

"You're telling me you never had that luscious blue ass in your bed?" the Pirate Queen teased. "I know your tastes. She's just your type. You're a liar if you tell me you haven't had a taste of her."

Tevos continued to frown. Aria continued to grin.

"As for Shepard? I like her. I even have a bit of respect for her." the pirate queen pinched the air between her forefinger and thumb. "She's smart; she's very crafty, very shrewd. Feisty. I like that. Though, she is a little too idealistic for her own good and maybe a little too bluntly spoken as well. But she still is in her maiden stages so it's to be expected.

"Hell the Matriarchy even allowed her on one of our more sacred rituals. Even my pole dancers gossip about her taking on a firaxon shark with only her mentor. On our Hunt we had three other huntresses with us and two our mentors. Now I know you had a hand in making sure that Shepard was able to undergo the rite of passage and just in time for her wedding feast. How romantic."

The Councillor was silent for a moment, then: "I'll speak with the Matriarchy. Perhaps a bit of prudence is not a wasted effort."

"Tell me Tevos why did you and your fellow Counsellors turn her into a Spectre?" Aria was intrigued to find the answers. "Especially as it seems you have so very little respect or trust in her."

"She proved a remarkable reliance and a brilliant mind for tactics during the Skyllian Blitz." Tevos answered and relayed what she knew from Shepard's own report of what happened on Elysium, along the reports of Hackett and Anderson.

"Rallying the troops into an effective fighting forces, securing the vast majority of the population and in the end standing alone against a full platoon of slavers to the extent she nearly kills herself by over extending her biotics. Impressive. You hear things of what happened on Eden Prime, some seemed to be exaggerated but disarming four nukes is also impressive. Seems she very driven to save as many lives as possible. Why she even sacrificed hundreds of human lives deliberately to save the _Destiny Ascension_. Ever ask her why she did this?"

"You think she did it to curry favour with the Council? I highly doubt it. Shepard simply saw the wisdom that should we fall, the vacuum of power left behind would harm Citadel Space stability. And by proxy- the other regions of space would equally become unstable as they try to take advantage of this vacuum." said Tevos.

"And yet you do not listen to her warnings. In fact you hushed it all up and blamed the attack on the Citadel on the geth. Why ignore the true threat of _Sovereign_?"

"Now you sound like her. Truly I thought you had better wisdom, Aria. The geth was threat true and present for all to see, to witness. Panic would spread faster and more deadly than that plague your Omega suffered should any hint the Reaper threat leak. This way we contained it. _Sovereign_ was an isolated ship, a recovered and repurposed derelict Reaper ship. Nothing more. Perhaps it is a cruel and unfortunate truth but in order for the Council to maintain order, misinformation must be implemented."

"And by doing so you make one of your own Spectres to seem mentally unstable. You dishonour her-your hero, your saviour. What is it one of ancient salarian philosophers once said? Ruling is convenient but only for rulers. The people must live to serve.

"I can appreciate that, it's how I maintain dominance over Omega. But when I have an extraordinary servant, I do not out of hand make them an enemy. Queens and pawns, Tevos, Matriarchs and fools."

"Waxing prophetic warnings now Aria?"

"Just making an idle statement." the Queen of Omega said. "Make of it what you will."

Aria cut the lines of communication. It had been four days since she ripped the visions from Shepard's mind-four nights of nightmares, each darker, bloodier and hopeless as the last. Each ending in Shepard morbid warming that she should awaken before it becomes worse. Maybe now she had done what she promised to do they would end.

Goddess damn that blasted Spectre! The lilac skinned matriarch wanted to hit that puny human with a biotic pulse so powerful Shepard would end up in the next cycle for playing her as she did. However Aria couldn't help respected Shepard for using her own 'rule' against her.

Why it was almost worthy of a move from the Queen herself. Though Aleena probably had more do to with that then the Spectre's own initiative. Still Shepard was willing to go through with it. Aria gave her that much. No doubt Shepard will still be feeling the effects of the forced meld for days to come. As far as T'Loak was concerned a four day migraine and the occasional nose bleed was fair compensation for four nights of fucking nightmares.

They were even.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Liara kissed Samantha's brow as if it would seep away the migraine still stubbornly lingering within the human's mind. At least the acoustical buzzing-whine had finally stopped as did the flashes of light behind the eyelids. And praise the Goddess the nosebleeds stopped after the second day.

Dr. Chakwas was concerned for the very possible neurological damage the forced melding had caused. Shepard willingly went through the motions of the medical examinations more out of the promise she gave Liara and a bit of common sense than any true willingness on her side. Fortunately the physical trauma was only temporary; it was the physiological trauma that had both doctors concerned.

Both for very similar but very different reasons. Chakwas had yet to determine if the Spectre was fit for duty. So far she had not decided otherwise. Liara on the other hand was concerned that such an attack on her beloved's mind would have far reaching far greater consequences. They had made love but had not yet bonded. The asari was concerned that Samantha would bulk at the connection and shut her out. The bond between them had dimmed a little; the mental shielding was nearly impenetrable. There was a part of Liara that greatly feared because of the forced link, she would lose the deep connection she had with her bondmate.

For the past four days the only time the link was completely open was during Sam's horrific nightmares. Liara was pulled into each visceral image after the other. Sometimes Samantha was seeing the world being torn apart by machines, traitors and creatures of the Reapers through the eyes of a prothean: more specifically through the eyes of Regent Izu-Chaun. The prothean scientist who had devised the Vinculum in order to store the memories of her people, still haunted Shepard long after her severance from the blasted device.

In other nightmares Shepard was running through a burning monochromatic forest filled with the dead and dying. Voices screamed out all accusing her of not doing more the loudest of them was the silent unborn cries of Secura. The galaxy was on fire. The creatures created by the Reapers were friends…loved ones…Liara. Rather than have Liara become a soulless husk of what she once was, the nightmare always had Shepard holding a grenade, killing them both as well as newly conceived child in Liara's womb.

For a time the night terrors had dissipated now they were back in full force pulling Liara into them as a helpless observer, unable to intervene or wake her bondmate from the torment of Samantha's subconscious. Sam's terror flared through her barrier to reach the asari. Then there was silence again. Waves of nausea swept over the asari, jarring maiden's own aching head. Screwing her eyes shut against the light coming from the fish tank, Liara tired to reach Sam through their link.

What happens to one happens to the other. That was the nature of the gestalt that so fully bonded them. Liara gasped holding the side of her head as Samantha curled tighter into a fetal position holding her own sides of her skull. The sudden overwhelming pain infused itself into Liara's brain.

"Li-Liara." Sam grunted through clenched teeth. Wincing she rolled over daring to open her eyes, she met a pair of pain lanced beautiful blues. She stretched out touching her beloved's hand. The physical contact was an extravagant explosion of suddenly not being in pain.

In that moment of stillness clarity struck. They had suffered another gestalt. The effect rippled through them, pushing their bond deeper. The tides and eddies of their connections shifted as the pulse of nebula's core. Captivating, and dizzying—a rapturous glorious whole.

More than hands touched. Foreheads pressed together, no words passed between bondmates.

The link fully opened shut out the pain. What happens to one happens to the other. In order to protect each other from the trauma, pain of a battlefield to protect any child they were to have, they had to shield their own minds. But in doing so the lovers risked opening yet another gestalt, another wave of inconsolable mental anguish and crippling migraines.

There had to be a balance.

There had to peace.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Even in her cell Miranda could feel the _Normandy_ was a buzz with activity. Shepard had been sending out several scouting parties to various sectors of the Omega Nebula over the past four days. Of course in the Cerberus operative's secluded confines did not permit her to know the specifics, none of the guards were forth coming in fact none would speak to her. And all four within the brig were very defiantly asari. No one wore a helm this time round; it seemed that ploy was only for Oriana's benefit.

Of her sister, they had spoken little but at least Oriana was willing to open a dialog. It was a hopeful start. For the first day mush as it was with Shepard, Oriana took a set at the card table and ate lunch together. Today it wasn't MREs it was freshly made _fkio_ hen soup and sourdough bread.

The Thessian fkio were purple flightless flamingos like birds that had two tails and four wings. To Miranda fkios seemed resemble the kiwi birds from New Zealand more. The only thing that was remotely flamingo-like about them was their necks and legs: their bodies and heads were defiantly kiwi. Their meat was as common fair on the asari homeworld as much as turkey or goose on Earth.

It was actually a nice change from field rations.

There was an agreement passed between them. There was to be no talk of Cerberus. Instead the newly reunited sisters spoke of safer topics: music being one of them. Apparently Oriana loved Adagio's Fifth just like Miranda did. In fact the younger woman loved to play as much as she enjoyed listening to it as she was an apt violinist. They spoke of Oriana's plans of becoming involved in the colonization effort. the younger genetic-twin even joked about it. Miranda smiled at the slight difference in them as she had no true since of humor.

"I want to know something." Oriana suddenly piped up drawing her sister's attention to her. "If our father was so concerned about a legacy, his dynasty why did he go out of his way to make sure his tank-bred babies was girls? You'd think he'd want a male heir. Most men care only for a male heir, carry on the name and all that. In high society female offspring are merely tolerated if only breeding stock to be traded for the sake of an alliance.

"Yet Henry Lawson make sure he had girls. He had to extract his Y chromosome to insure the end product was XX not XY. That takes quite a bit generic engineering and a lot of recourses. And he made sure the end product had the most desirable traits. So why females? Why daughters?"

Miranda smiled. "I asked him the same question when I was still a child." the older sister offered a dry humorously chuckle. "You truly what to know what he told me?" there was a nod from the younger woman. "He said he wanted a true dynasty not a rival. A male could only be a rival, a son carries the legacy of his father's name but he is also the supreme rival of his father. It a son's destiny to take over the family, but a daughter inherits it.

"The name Lawson will carry on because of what I am, what he created me….us to be. I wasn't the first daughter he made only the first he kept, and he made sure I knew it. You are the second. And you were created not to be the spare but because I was too wilful to be what he wanted. You're right our genes are tailor made, Sister. He made us into the penical of human evolution and perfection, Oriana. There is nothing we do, have done or will do that isn't because of our genes. The only thing we can lay claim to is our failures, our mistakes. Every success we have is due only because our father's generic tampering. He gave us the innate advantage to succeed."

Oriana shook her head. "I don't believe that. I'm good at the violin because I've practiced all the time. Three hours a day since I was four. That's why I'm good, good enough to get into Julliard or Grissom if I wanted. It is not because I was tailor made in some Frankenstein Cerberus lab!" Unable to contain her frustration and anger the younger sister shot to her feet and stalked towards the door of the brig in a storm.

"Wait! Oriana!" Miranda called out after her, her voice useless to recall her sister. Lawson rushed the door but was thrown back against the floor when she rushed the forcefeild surrounding the bars of her cell. "Damn it!"

Miranda rose with poise and dignity acting as if she hadn't just run headlong into an electrified barrier. She reclaimed her chair near her bed. "Damn it." She rubbed her face with her hands, tears falling down her alabaster cheeks. "DAMN IT!"

The asari guards watched the little drama play out with mild interest. One of them displayed a satisfied smirk at the human's folly. Another looked away almost sorry for what her eyes had witnessed but knew better than to display more than that. Pity was wasted on the human who would not even appreciate it nor accept it.

Now that their human captive was the only one within the brig the guards departed, leaving Miranda in seclusion. She was of course to be highly monitored but there was no cause to leave four guards within the brig to simply stare at four walls for an entire shift.

The monitoring wasn't simply left up to electronic devices but eyes-on or so to speak. A two-way mirror created the facing wall of the brig's main entrance. Here a rotation of guards kept a steady vigilant watch.

Rising her dark head Lawson shouted out defiantly the seemingly empty room. "I want to see Shepard! I demand to see her!"

A comm-switch activated, "Your _request_ has been noted and will be passed along. In accordance to priority it may be answered." A disembodied voice called over the radio.

_Maybe be answered_? _Priority?_ Bullshit! Those slue-skinned hussies wouldn't tell Shepard a damned thing. "Tell your Spectre I'll trade her some information in this sector. Information Cerberus has. Tell her!"

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

"Hey Professor. Got a minute to talk?" Shepard asked as she walked into the lab.

The aged salarian nodded. "Of course. Plague on Omega dealt with. Plenty of time to analyze Collector Intelligence. Impressive laboratory. Missed working with operations with a budget. Best setup I've seen since working with Special Tasks Group."

"Is your assistant Daniels settling the clinic since you left?" Shepard started off conversationally.

"Doing well. Left him security mechs just in case. Can't be too careful. Also tired of mechs. Noisy." The lines around the salarian's face grew taunt. "Never used them in STG."

The dark haired woman offered a consultative smile "Must have been frustrating working in Omega which such a limited facility."

Mordin shook his head surprising the Spectre. "No. Loved it." he smiled. "Limited ability presents challenge! Save greater number of people using limited resources. Security threats. Gangs. Mercenary groups add additional difficulty. Quite enjoyable. Plague stretched abilities to the limit. Couldn't have asked for more. Also enjoy saving people of course" the last bit seemed clumsily added. But it made the Specter smile nonetheless. "Helping the helpless. The greater good, all that too." Mordin waved a dismissive hand in front of his face. "Nice retirement after STG work complete."

This intrigued the humans. "Tell me more about the salarian Special Tasks Group." the Spectre folded her arms under her chest in her more relaxed pose. She and Kirrahe never actually spoke about it and he wasn't so inclined to offer insight. He was a good man, good office just not personable. Then again in the commander's experience so few high ranked officers were…well save for Anderson.

"Respected organization. Clandestine. Handles difficult assignments with limited oversight. Recons, analysis. Occasional wet work. Identify problems, have neutralize options ready should the need arise. Model for Council Spectres, based on Special Tasks Group. Very similar."

This Shepard did not know. Kirrahe never actually spoke mentioned it. "Similar in what way?"

"Salarians lack numbers, brute strength, military prowess. Have to rely upon stealth. Intelligence. Agents trusted given wide operative freedom. Spectres similar. Given goal, told to accomplish. Better founded of course." he chuckled. "Didn't have to buy our own weapons."

Shepard snorted. Yeah that was a new one on her too. In the Alliance she was given weapons, armor though if she wanted more or different makes and models she had to purchase her own. When she joined the Spectres she half expected to get their standard issue armaments and hardsuits only to be told she could have whatever she wanted provided she paid for it. Hell the Humanity's first Spectre half expected to have to fit the bill for her new ship on top of it all. Fortunately it was issued but all upgrades had been on her dime not the Council's.

How fortunate it was that she had the foresight not only to send out probes to collect resources on the plants within any system the Normandy was in but she had done so under her registration number. So all proceeds went directly into a fund she set up for _Normandy's _extra expenses. Expenditures like new cyclonic shielding, Silaris armor and the more efferent Helios thrusters, greater probe capacity, superior scanners well as higher caliber Thanix cannons.

"So what kind of research were you doing in the Special Tasks Group?" pressed Shepard.

"Not simply research. Several recon missions. Covert. High risk. Served under young Captain Kirrahe. Surprised to see him on board. Studied krogan genophage. Took water, tissue samples from krogan colonies."

"I worked with Kirrahe before." Shepard explained. "It's why he's here now. His team helped me destroy Saren's cloning fancily on Virmire."

Mordin nodded. "Heard he was part of that. Jury rigged explosive." once more Mordin chuckled softly. "Always got job done with limited resources. Good captain. Bit of a cloaca though. Loved his speeches. 'Hold the line!'" another chuckle. "Personally prefer to get job done and go home. Probably military bravo. Jargon. Chest pounding." looking up he saw the human's right eyebrow arch up to her forelock, which he recognized as a human body language for either surprise or displeasure. It was difficult to tell. He coughed embarrassingly. "No offence."

Shepard grinned "As long as you're not calling me an assehole same as him, none taken. You're right about military chest pounding to rally the troops. You have to inspire them. But yeah I can also see the appeal of getting the job done and going home. Only my ship is my home." Shepard smiled. "Born on one. Lived my whole life on them, more than likely die on one."

"Ah yes. Heard that too. Space born vagabond. Like quarians." again he coughed "Not bad thing. Always on the move. Know how to live compact life."

Shepard decided to let it slid. She'd been called worse than a space born vagabond at least he hadn't called her a cloaca. "So tell me why was the STG studying the genophage?"

"Krogan rebellions bloody. Dangerous. Nearly as bad as rachni attacks. All species evolve. Adapt. Mutate. If genophage weakens. Need to be prepared."

This didn't sound good. Frowning Shepard's blue eyes pierced into the man before her. "What was the STG preparing to do?"

"Military schematics for likely krogan population growth. Political scenarios for attack points. Genophage reduced krogan numbers. Species aggression unchecked, population explosion would be disastrous. STG helped check krogan rebellions. Needed to be ready to do the same. Simple recon. Nothing to worry about."

Shepard knew a brush off when she heard one. She wasn't about to let this go. "What exactly is the genophage." she knew from Wrex and the history books that it was a sterility plague but now was the chance to know far more about the thing that was killing her friend's people.

"Bioweapon designed by salarian science team. Deployed by turians to end krogan rebellions more than a thousand years ago. Effectives every cell of krogan body. Probably and incorrectly considered as a sterility plague. Actually adjusts viable fertility rates to compromise for high krogan birth rate. Stabiles birth rate to pre-industrial population.

"I see." Shepard's frown didn't' disappear. In her heart she felt the genophage was wrong. What was to stop the Council from making the same decisions for another race? Like humanity? What if they decided horridness crimes committed by the likes of Cerberus was enough to order the construction and deployment of another bioweapon? They cast the quarians out after the Morning War. They cast and rightly so the bartarian's out for their slaving practices. What if the next race they commented an exulted march upon was humans for the atrocities committed by one small but very powerful organization?

Dislodging such thoughts from her mind. Shepard changed the subject matter. "I'm glad the labs and personal are working out for you."

"All quiet satisfactory. Just need more samples, More Collector data. Tissue samples. Anything you can get, I can use. Find new tech."

"We've uncovered a great deal already and I've sent a couple of teams out following up on some leads while were here in the Omega Nebula. And Mordin, it's good to have you aboard."

"Glad to be here. Must get back to work. Will talk latter."

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

The leads Shepard spoke about led to two different systems within the sector. Instead of leading the groups herself, the Spectre had delegated the missions to her more than capable people. Williams was to lead one while Garrus took the other, Shepard wanted more than simply given them the opportunity of taking command, she wanted to prove themselves, to themselves. The way the Spectre saw, it was time for both of them to stop following, it was time for them to take the lead.

The first anomalous signature came from the Arinlarkan system which had only one planet called Utha. The oceanic ice planet had an ozone similar enough to Earth but it wasn't enough by far to ward off the substantial gamma radiation. It was defiantly not one's first choice of planets to land on despite its rich mineral deposits.

It was however from what intel the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance had on it, a way station for slaves escaping their batarian masters. What little land it has is tectonically stable and its considerable radiation belt and electronic storms grant cover from many types of sensors. Fleeing ships typically hid on Utha long enough to discharge their drives cores and stock up on deuterium before trying to make it to the cluster's mass relay.

It wasn't the frozen water world that drew the attention of the _Normandy_, it was an appearance of a derelict ship in a synchronize orbit around the planet.

_MSV Strontium Mule_ sustained heavy damaged by Blue Suns mercs led by one Captain Vorhess, a wanted man in several systems. The turian had seized the ship, slaughtered the crew all for the opportunity to highjack the cargo of prothean artifacts. He had stationed his man-a Sergeant named Boortis within the cargo hold, a man wanted for several counts of pirating within Council space.

Williams was successful in resizing the merchant ship and retrieval the relic. Neither named criminal however was taken alive. Their deaths were reported to appropriate authorities. More importantly to the young lieutenant she had gained Shepard's approval for not only retaking the vessel but for a successful command over her team.

Within a day of reporting the success over the Blue Suns, the _Normandy_ received transmissions from Alliance Intl that Vorhess's Suns were operating out of a base in the Sigurd's Cradle. Which incidentally was the place the _MSV Strontium Mule_ had been ambushed. Apparently the _Mule_ had been lured there by old but favored false distress call trick.

The second anomalous signature was discovered by Liara. She had very willingly given command of the Science Team over Mordin Sullus while she took the lead over Intel. Liara's capabilities of becoming an information broker were proving very beneficial. Apparently she had quite the talent for it. The maiden was able to trace the transmissions of a Cerberus operative working within the Omega Nebula back one to the plant of Lorek in the system of Father.

Indeed Garrus's team did in fact find the lost operative who had been captured by the Eclipse under the command of salarian named Morl. His base was overrun with vanguards and troopers however they were dispatched by a combination of biotic and tech attacks without a loss of life on the side of the _Normandy_.

The Cerberus operative wasn't as fortunate however as he had died under the Eclipse interrogation. The data harvested from the dean man was salvageable. By Liara's orders the information was collected and sent to the Alliance Command as well as the Council. She meant to protect her Bondmate and fully legitimize the Spectre's continued hunt of the rouge organization. T'Soni also kept a copy for herself with the express intent of cracking the heavily encrypted dated to further her own agenda as an information broker.

The one mission Shepard had not delegated was the mission to Amada system. The forth planet of the system was highly significant to the Spectre. It was here the first _Normandy _met its fate. Destroyed by an unknown enemy, though Shepard now highly expected it to be the by the hands-the claws of the Collectors.

As per SOP whenever a team was to touch down on an unknown planet scans were taken from the galaxy map. This was then transferred to the relevant ground crew allowing them to prepare for any possible situation once they touched down.

Scans revealed that Alchera's crust was composed of carbon and ice. While low density, its large size allowed it to retain a thick atmosphere of methane and ammonia. It is believed that if Alchera had acquired a bit more mass when the Amada star system formed, it would have formed the core of a second outer-system gas giant. Alchera has three moons: Uluru, Wandjina, and Baiame.

Shepard assembled her crew. Those who had served aboard the _Normandy_, the first and true _Normandy_. Changing its IDC to the _Victory_ didn't alter that fact. The Council in their infantine wisdom ambushed the truth. They had decided to rechristen the true _Normandy _for the victory it led over the citadel. They did so because they were convinced use of information and disinformation is ultimately the path of power. Councillor Tevos said it herself that to push others into an unreal world is a balance of that power. It facilitates what is necessary to keep the peace.

The _Normandy_ or at the very least the sprit of the _Normandy_ had to live on. The legend of Shepard and the _Normandy_ had to live on. If it did not then the enemies gain a foothold within Council territories which was something that could not be afforded to either the geth or Cerberus or to the Reapers and their agents.

Guilt still held heavily over Shepard's heart. Her ship, the true _Normandy_ had been shot down, destroyed because enemy agent believed she was in command of it. Twenty lives were unaccounted for, twenty souls who ironically had served with Shepard when she was still in command. Twenty soldiers who were familiar with the ship's operations which normally would not be an issue as one Alliance ship was the same as another. But considering the _Normandy SR1_ was a prototype that familiarity was quintessential to retain the ship's operations at peak performance.

Even still that familiarity had not saved the _NormandySR1_ from its untimely fate. But its destruction may yet save the _Normandy SR2_ and the souls aboard her. Discovering how the ship was destroyed was key as was creating counter defences to insure that fate wasn't shared. Shepard was very confident in the upgrades that had been installed during their month long dry dock at Illium, but if it wasn't enough the data analyzed from the crash site would reveal any vulnerability.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

It was one big iceberg.

Broken, jagged and shattered—the ice and the _Normandy_.

When she saw the broken remains of her ship, Shepard's knees nearly buckled. Her heart lurched beneath her rip cadge. This ship that led her to victory, to triumph over Saren, and over Sovereign didn't deserve the inglorious stripping of her name. She didn't deserve this fate to be obliterated and left to rot on a frozen world like the carcase of a lion's feast.

She didn't start when she felt a hand upon her back. Imagined or not the human felt the warmth radiating from her wife's palm against the shell of her hardsuit. "Are you alright, _Melethril?_" She asked knowing that indeed her bondmate, her lover was very far from alright. Yet Shepard nodded as Liara knew she would. Her brave, ever enduring, light of her heart would always press on unto the darkest end.

"God look at her!" William's voice broke over the radio disturbing Liara from her inner thoughts. "There is nothing left. What kind of weapon can do that?"

"Reaper tech." Garrus answered. "We saw it with Sovereign."

"Keelah." Tali echoed everyone's astonishment. "They didn't stand a chance. Those Reaper cannons tore right through the hull."

Silently Shepard passed all of them, her head bowed she walked to the center mass of the destruction. Slowly she saluted the old dead girl. Stealing herself she turned around and faced her crew. "There are twenty souls unaccounted for. We need to bring their families clouser. Something. Anything. Calibrate your omni tools to pick up stainless steal; it should lead you to dog tags that should still be on our MIAs if any are to be found. Once we find them we load the bodies onto the shuttle and place the memorial Hackett shipped to us.

She didn't say anything more, there was nothing more to be said. There had been no orders to pair up but it seemed almost inevitable and an almost natural response. Tali and Garrus wondered to the north towards the defunct M35 Mako. Of course Shepard had a sad grim smile; Garrus had a particular fondness for the transport or at least that particular one. He was always repairing, calibrating and doing general maintenance on the beast, especially after drops planet side.

Shepard admitted she had a small amount of fondness for the transport itself despite its stupidly vertically aligned mass accelerator. Sure it handled like a drunk rhino and had no agility what-so-ever no real speed, no lateral movement, but the thing could climb and climb for days and had a powerhouse of a cannon. It could take down a threshermaw like nobody's business. It was one of the reasons Shepard retained two of them along with their bigger brothers the M36s aboard the new _Normandy_.

_Normandy_: as big and as proud as you please printed on the hull of her dead ship. It didn't read _Victory_, it was _Normandy_ as it should. No amount of politicking and game playing would ever change that. Shepard was in half a hind to plant the memorial near the hull and send a holodisk back to the media in utter defiance of the Council's decision to discarnate her memory.

Once more the Spectre felt her bondmate's presence in her mind as well as at her side. Without word Liara laced her fingers into Sam's. "I am sorry." she uttered softly.

"Yeah. Me too." she turned and pressed her helmeted forward against Liara's. "I didn't think it was going to be this hard. I lost soldiers in my command. I hated it, this is no differently. To see her torn up like this…" Shepard sucked in a breath of regulated air. "God damn it. I hope to hell she gave as good as she got."

Liara closed her eyes. Not for the memory of the ship or even the lost lives that had gone down with her, but the selfish thought she was thankful to the Goddess that her Samantha wasn't in command. She in deep in the marrow of her bonze Samantha would have perished along with her beloved _Normandy_. She didn't know how, but she knew, she knew Samantha would have died had she been in command. And she'd be here now looking for her bondmate's corpse, her tags, anything of her beloved.

They continued to search the debris field; so far eleven dog tags had been recovered. Ash found names of people she had made friends or at least good acquaintances with. The Draven twins, Rosamund and Talitha who were marines along Addison Chase and Silas Crosby the latter two were from Amaterasu the same colony as Ash's family finally settled after her father passed on.

Tali came across two names she recognized form Engineering: Alexei Dubyansky, and Raymond Tanaka. And there was Amina Waaberi who was so proud of being spacer-born just like the great Commander Shepard. The young woman had been the same age as Tali, and was continually asked her questions about life on the Flotilla. Tali smiled behind her mask remembering the young woman's eager curiosity. The smile fell when she realized finding these tags…meant Amina was dead.

"Skipper." Ash's voice called out from somewhere west of Shepard's position. "Where are the bodies?"

"Say again?"

"The bodies. Where are they? Shouldn't there be bodies? We have lifepods, debris I found at least five dog tags, eezo canisters but no bodies. This planet doesn't have animal lifeformes, and this place is a deep freeze, so where are they? Could they have been spaced? Burned up in atmo?"

The question struck a nerve in the commander. She had been wondering the same, Why weren't there bodies? There should be bodies "I don't know, Williams. I have no answers for you. Hackett must be asking the same questions, which is why he sent us here. Scanners didn't pick anything up in space. Keep looking for the tags, they maybe all we find."

Shepard turned her attention to a row of sleeper pods often referred to as coffin pods as they were the same size and shape as coffins her mind flashed back when they were whole and their berth sound. Behind her was the mess hall between these two areas she and Liara found five of the tags. She called up seeing Corporal Monica Negulesco, who had been given the duties of a mess sergeant. A gloved hand traced over her name engraved upon a bit of mettle. On the reverse side of the one tag was an etched image of the frigate, showcasing where a solider served. On the other tag it was the Alliance insignia that marked it.

Shepard's own was slightly different: each had her name, rank, serial number, blood type and religious affiliation as standard. On the reserve side of her tags held the N7 insignia and upon the other the Spectres.

This was probably all that was left of the young woman. The Spectre thought remorsefully as her hand traced the name again. But where was her body? There was no trace of it. Changing the parameters of her Omni tool, Shepard didn't even pick up any trace signatures of her DNA other than what was on the tag it self.

Many more names were picked up. Shepard paused in her search when she came across a helmet—an N7 helmet. Her helmet. How in the hell? She turned it over and over in her hands. It was heavily scarred, dented and burnt. There was a familiar dent on the forehead. It was where she had hit Wrex when she headbutted him to gain his respect and oath during their mission against Saren. It must have been down in the armory and forgotten once Shepard purchased her Colossus armor from the Spectre rec-officer.

"I'll be damned." she flipped the helmet once more in her hands, "This thing has been through hell and back."

"Perhaps it should have a new home in our quarters." Liara offered as she trailed her fingers along the contours of the helmet. Once more she thanked the Goddess her beloved was not on this _Normandy_ when it was shot down. "Perhaps for good luck."

Shepard grinned. "Maybe so. Either way it's still mine." She took hold of it in her left hand. "I'm taking it back."

They had by now a count of twenty dog tags they had full accounting of the MIAs which were now officially KIAs. Still no bodies which was very strange, no sign, no trace. Nothing. It bothered everyone on the squad. There should have at least something, if they were vaporized in atmo or whatever blasted cannon tore into the _NormandySR1_ then there would be no dog tags. It was as if someone came before and snatched their bodies and insured they left no trace of their trespass. But if that were so, why leave the tags behind? A warning? Posturing? No if it were either one then there would be an accompanying message.

Wouldn't there? Unless it was the Collectors that took them just like they took the colonists of Freedom's Progress. But again why leave behind the tags? The only thing Shepard could come up with seemed almost impossible. But Sherlock Holmes said it best: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Pirates then, body snatchers looking for someone. A specific target—a bounty they hoped to sell to a particular buyer. But by whom? Perhaps the body snatchers thought to deceive their employers by removing any identification and selling their booty under false pretenses that the bodies they had were the ones the buyers wanted.

So that begged the question who wanted human bodies? Collectors yes for some unknown reason but why would anyone else? Sam looked to Liara and an idea formed in her mind. Liara's ability thus far as an information broker was developing exceptionally well. Perhaps she could find who has a bounty on the bodies of Alliance soldiers.

Her eyes watched curiously from under the visor of her helmet as her beloved bend down in the ice and snow to retrieve something buried in its white womb.

"This datapad belongs to Navigator Pressly." Liara said picking up the thin object. "Was it left behind perhaps? I thought he was stationed aboard the human ambassador's ship-oh…I suppose he would have been reassigned after Udina's defection."

"He must have requested the _Normandy_…um I mean…the _Victory_… " Williams commented. "He was her navigator after all."

"She will always be the _Normandy_. Those poncy twats on the Council will ever change that." Garrus said venomously.

Shepard nodded in complete agreement with the turian. "What does it say Liara."

"They seem to be private thoughts, Spectre." Liara used her bondmate's rank out of deliberate purpose. She needed to be ordered to invade a dead man's personal belongings, his thoughts he believed were his alone.

"He's passed on. Besides he might have written about whatever it was that did that to them. It they were being dogged. Read it." came the order.

"Aye aye." T'Soni obeyed. "Much of it is corrupted but I will read what I can." she cleared her throat and began to read the uncomfortable words: '….spoke to the Commander about this. I…..all these damned aliens aboard the Alliance's most advanced ship. I just don't trust them. Esp…..that damned asari. What does Shepard think this is some kind of zoo?'"

Shepard face contorted into a grimacing sneer beneath her mask. "Kicking him off my ship is the best move I made in personal."

Ash's face too held a grimace. But for another reason. She remembered the day she Pressly wrote that. She was in the mess with him. Apparently he saw her as a kindred sprit for when she asked the Navigator what he was working on he read aloud what he wrote and Ash had laughed at his comment and had agreed with it. She was sill sore at Shepard for dismissing her worries despite headbutting Wrex to get him in line.

Hell she even admitted to Pressly that she couldn't tell the animals from the aliens when she was on the Citadel. He had chuckled at her quip about skull-faced birds, bug-eyes amphibians, basset hound bowling balls, talking turtles and squid-headed tarts that shook their asses on stage and pretended to be all wise off it. Now she was ashamed of those feelings. Looking at how happy and contented Liara made the Skipper she was embarrassed she had always thought the asari as noting more than squid-headed tarts. Her jib about asking Miss Protean Expert about her sex life she found hysterical. Hell she always beloved that the asari yeah were okay in the looks if you don't mind tentacles indeed of proper hair and you like lose floozies. Hell until she had a true conversation with Liara, Ash always said asari were nothing but blue-space whores, there only for the Captain Kirk-the-Jerk womanizers of the galaxy to fuck. Only they were blue instead of green but they were only there for tits and ass. And the Commander…was not Kirk-the-Jerk fuck off.

Williams slowly and begrudgingly admitted that Liara was a remarkable woman. The Lieutenant now would gladly lay down her life for her and the others on squad. This wasn't to say her misgivings about aliens weren't totally vanquished but she wasn't as hardcore set against them as she once was.

"There is more. Some of it is just as corrupted as the first entry." Liara said "…with the quarian. Seems she on some kind of pilgrimage, trying to improve the lot of her home ship. I can understand that. I would…. let babysit my children or anything but if she has to be onboard I suppose it's not that bad."

Tali shrugged. "That was when he had the chicken pox. I programmed a game for him on his Omni tool to help pass the time he was in sickbay. I know it was only a couple of days but it gave him something to do. He wasn't exactly the Galaxy of Fantasy sorta guy but he liked strategy games. You know the type where you build up cities, create armies, trade routs and such. He seemed to like it." the young woman signed. "He was always cold before that, I didn't know he though of us as just animals. But I'm not surprised most races think quarians are nothing but suit-rats. You're the first person to ever treat me as an equal, Shepard."

Garrus put a hand on taloned hand on his loves shoulders. "I wasn't exactly good to you either."

"But you were never unkind." Tail's voice smiled.

Ash looked away again. She had called (or rather shouted) Tali a thieving suit-rat when the young engineer had used some of her tools she had at her work station at the armory. She had accused the girl of thievery not understanding that aboard quarian vessels that if one wasn't using a tool another could do so. It was simply their way. She had even made the engineer cry and actually took pleasure in doing so, it taught the suit-rat a lesson after all. Again shame sunk into the marine's soul, she was unable to look up. Williams knew the quarian never told Shepard of the incident, instead the girl waited to be sent packing just like Williams threatened her with.

When the lieutenant dared to rise has head she saw Shepard's head was turned to her with a very knowing look. "Is there another entry?" Williams said attempting to ignore the uncomfortable feeling taking residence within her.

"There is. It seems to be the last one. He seems to have made an attempt to redeem his previous beliefs." Liara said with surprise filling her voice.

A more passionately justified Shepard might have once claimed too little too late. Instead the N7 decided give the dead navigator the benefit of the doubt. Liara's soft voice pulled the dark haired Spectre out of her internal musings.

"He writes. '…for a while now, and I'm taking a look back at past entries in this journal…how blind I was at the time. I came on this ship firmly believing humanity was on its own in the galaxy….. Shepard brought all these aliens on board, and there was no way we could have accomplished what we did without them. I am proud to say…die for any member of this crew, regardless of what world they were born on.'

"It is commendable he had a change of heart." Liara said diplomatically after she had finished reading. "It is often difficult to overcome prejudice. I had my own of humanity do not recall, Samantha? I believed it was a short-coming to be such a short-lived species. And before meeting you _Melethril_ I never took humanity seriously. We all grow either away from preconceptions, ignorant fear and racial stereotyping and shun it or we move towards it and embrace it. It is how we choose to grow that defines who we are."

"Wisely put, Li." Sam signed "Come we have a monument to place." she said passing Williams. She paused for a moment and placed a hand on the other human's armored shoulder. Her voice now became a faint whisper. "Away from or towards, Ash. You've been walking away from it for sometime now. I know it hasn't been easy for you and I'm proud of you for every attempt you make to walk away." the older woman stood closer. "At the very least you don't voice aloud you thought my wife to be a squid-headed tart."

Ash paled. "You knew…?"

"You were not exactly discrete."

William winced. "You didn't cite me for it."

"I very nearly did. But I'm a great believer in second chances. Had you vocally persisted in conduct unbecoming of an officer I sure as hell would have chastise you for it-stained your exemplary record. Fortunately I didn't have to; you took the chance I gave you. Liara said it: away from or towards Ash, there are only two choices for hatred. " Far more loudly the Spectre added. "The only way we win against the Reapers is if we all stand united. The war against bigotry in every race will be just as daunting as the one that is coming for us. But I have no idea how to get the krogan, salarian and turians to work together, or everyone else to see the quarians more than gypsy scavengers.

"You're not the only one struggling with race hatred. I despise batarians and everything they stand for, everything they are. But if we don't stand united we fall divided and the Reapers will have won. I won't let that happen. If I have to bash a few head, yell and threaten then that's exactly what I'm going to do. If I have to make concessions and make nice, I'll do that to. There had been too much death already."

"I wonder how many more memorials will be erected by the end of it all." Ash muttered.

"Too many. Far too many." a heavy sigh followed the words.

"Samantha." Liara took a tentative step towards her bondmate. She had not heard the conversation shared between the two humans nor did she need or care to. Her agenda was another kind, though perhaps no less uncomfortable. "We were not the only ones to have served on the _Normandy_. This _Normandy_. Perhaps if we allowed those who had to see her… to pay respects they may feel…that they have some clouser. I do not know. I am not military but I understand the importance of the need to say ones farewells to a beloved ship and fellow crewmates."

Sam stepped up to her Angel Eyes and wrapped her in an embrace. "A great idea Liara. If the crew wants to they should be able to have the opportunity to salute the ol'girl."

Activating her helmet's radio she patched into the _Normandy's_ bridge. "Joker patch me into Normandy's open comm-channel."

The seriousness in her voice forestalled any jest on the pilot's lips. Joker learned fairly quickly when his jokes were accepted and when to keep his tongue between to his teeth. He had pissed her off with the comment: 'I knew what I'm was doing' back on Virmire. She was a little more accepting of his humor than Anderson but she wouldn't let everything slide. The shredded remains of her first command he knew to keep silent about what she saw down there.

"Aye aye Spectre. Patching you through now."

It took only a moment before Shepard had the rapt attention of the full ship's complement. "This is Spectre Shepard. As you all well know we have found the remains of the Normandy SR1. Twenty of her crew never made it off her. We found their names and they will be remembered with honor. They will be remembered for serving on the true _Normandy_. The Council can not take that away.

"It has been said I requested the change of IDC. I did not. I am an officer and I do my duty. I am a Spectre and I obey my orders and I did so. And a name was stripped and given to a ship that already bore one. Because of a legend the Council needed.

"For those who wish to honor the true _Normandy_ a shuttle will be waiting in hanger bay to transport you ground side. When all have assembled the placing of the monument will take place. I await you're arrival. Shepard out." She deactivated her radio and looked up into the frozen heavens.

"How many do you think will come?" Tali put to words the wonder of them all.

"Don't know. Thinking maybe Dr. Chakwas, Joker for sure, Adams and his crew too." Ash answered for her Skipper.

"And the marines that served on her." Garrus added. "Might take two shuttles."

A crack of thunder boomed overhead—the sound of a lard ship braking atmo. Breaking through the dense cloud cover the distinct silhouette of a wavecrest class frigate came into view.

"What in blazes?" Shepard instinctively raised her hand to the level of her eyes as she looked up.

As if hearing her question Joker's voice broke over the external loudspeakers of the _Normandy_. "Sorry Captain. It seems that we don't have enough shuttles to ferry the entire crew completed to your LZ. I was forced to improvise."

A laugh burbled out a proud commander. The appearance of her crew all them touched Shepard deeply in such fathoms she was unable to put voice to it. She watched as Joke expertly navigated the nimble ship on top of an ice plateau directly south of the last bit of wreckage. As soon as it touched down the rear gangplank lowered and the crew filed out by the score. All of them even the scientists marched in formation. They were led by Shiala, Dr. Karin Chakwas, Engineer Greg Adams and in a hyper accelerated mobility hardsuit Flight Lieutenant Jeffery Monroe. Behind them the soldiers who served aboard the first _Normandy_ and behind them the new crewmembers. Only a small contention was left aboard the warship but they would see and hear the memorial service all the same.

Shiala approached. "Spectre Shepard, Huntress Naga'sadow came to me with the initiative to form an honor guard in the respects of the human tradition to give the _Normandy_ the proper sending with your permission. I took the liberty and granted her request."

The human clapped a hand on her XO's shoulder. "Make it happen. And thank you, Shiala, I'll make sure to tell our young huntress. This means a great deal to me and I know it will to the other human crewmembers as well."

It mere moments the crew assembled swiftly into platoons waiting for their captain. For a moment she said nothing but called up her Omni tool and left the small screen display up.

Somewhere in the back Joker could be heard saying; "Look what they did to my baby!"

A second latter Dr. Chakwas was shushing him.

"Those that served aboard the _Normandy SR1_ were valiant and courageous in the face of insurmountable impossible odds. They stuck by her captain and their crewmates when on the hunt to stop Saren and Sovereign. When we faced almost certain court-martial for the theft of this fine ship they did not bulk, did not run and they did not even with just cause mutiny. Instead they served with distinction and courage. No commander, no captain could ask for more.

"I can say without hesitation each of those lives lost were extraordinary people, they were diligent, talented and dutiful. They had senses of humor and kindness and above all courageous. I have no words to honor them or do justice for their sacrifice, for their lives. I have no words to utter about this marvelous ship that gave us the victory over Sovereign.

"While words alone can not be enough I have some names that might do. We often speak the names of those who give their lives for their world. And while these twenty men and women did just that, that is not what their lives were about. The following are the names that did not die in service who are indeed alive today because of the twenty here:

"Captain Samantha Shepard-Spectre, Second Lineament Ashley Williams, Dr. Liara T'Soni, Garrus Vakarian. Tali'Zorah Vos Normandy, Urdnought Wrex…"

Shepard's list went on to name every soul that served aboard the _Normandy SR1_ when she had finished she stood back and Commander Shiala took the impromptu stage.

"Honor guard! Present arms!"

From the back ground seven soldiers marched with deliberate precision to the right flank of the Specter's position and the golden statue of the Normandy in flight. As soon as they appeared the calmer of heels clicking echoed for miles. The metallic staccato sound of arms being raised into a solute was as loud gunfire to follow.

The seven consisted of two humans, Sergeants Phineus Ragnos and Mira Baas, two asari: huntresses Naga'sadow and Lieutenant Morwen then the turian CAG Russan Vos and Sergeant Thingol the last was Captain Kirrahe the only salarian within the guard.

"Ready hah!" Shiala barked the order.

Seven rifles gave a single unison shot into the air. Twice more the rifles fired in the great frozen air of Alchera. The crew did not drop their held salute until the last round fired. The seven shouldered their firearms and retreated back into the general population of the crew and waited orders to be dismissed.

To the Spectre the twenty-one gun salute and more importantly the full assembly of her crew was far far more than a show of full military honors. It was a symbol of unification. A transcendence beyond preconceived prejudices.

Maybe there was hope yet.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

_AN: The dog tags in this story are not based on RL ones but Shepard's N7 tags you can buy which are of thicker steal than their RL counterparts. So theoretically you can have two different images on them not unlike a coin. On the ones you can buy one tag has the N7 emblem the other Shepard's basic Intel. On the Normandy crash site DLC assignment you see the image of the Normandy on the tag (though I think it is just a frigate to show where the solider is stationed.) Also on the tags Anderson tosses Shepard during her/his reinstatement it seems that on one of them has the Alliance insignia. So yes I took some liberties. Apologies to my readers who are active / retired military personal that may cringe at the inaccuracies but remember this is based on what is seen in game._


	5. Exposition of a New Direction

Chapter Five: Exposition of a New Direction

"I hear from my guards you were shouting to see me," said Shepard as she sauntered into the brig.

"That was two days ago," Miranda all but snapped. How accustomed she had grown to the fear and cold respect she had installed in the Cerberus subordinates. To be relegated to near unimportance was more frustrating than being caged.

"I've been busy. Funny how that happens on a ship," Shepard smiled casually. "A captain's time is generally not her own. Like now for instance. But I'm here, nevertheless. The guards say you have information you wish to trade to me."

"Yes. I…"

Shepard held her hand up silencing her prisoner. "Trade implies you believe you have something of value I want and thus desire something of its equivalence back. Now I can't imagine what I have other than the key to your freedom that you could possibly want." Shepard cocked her head and looked up through her forelock "Unless of course it entails your sister. Now having already promised her safe conduct what do you want me to do for her?"

"Very perceptive," Miranda said.

"Sorry to disappoint your perceptions of me. I know you like to think marines have very little up here," The Spectre tapped her head. "Or is it just spacers with no elite education you look down on?"

"No. It's not that," Miranda answered too quickly. "At first maybe. I mean look at you. A kid growing up in space, no real foundation for a family life, no roots, no true formal education only computer terminals. And you've done more than I could despite everything my father did to make me perfect you're the best humanity has to offer."

"You always bring up your genetic tailoring. It really bothers you doesn't it?"

"This is what I am Shepard. It is what Oriana is. Neither of us can hide it. The intelligence, the looks, even the biotics…he paid for all of that. Every one of your accomplishments is due to your skill the only thing I can take credit for are my mistakes."

"Pft. You give your father far too much credit. Yeah he gave you and your sister gifts but you can be proud with what you've done with them. Oriana can be proud. If you want to see yourself as a genetic mutt TIMmy put in charge then that's the way you see yourself. And apparently you do."

"This isn't a competition," Miranda retorted hotly. "Besides based on your combat record you're practically a bloody perfect human specimen."

"Perfect ehe?" Shepard crossed her arms under her chest in a relaxed stance and smirked.

"What are you smiling for?" Confusion washed over Miranda like a riptide. Her hand absentmindedly scratched a spot below her collarbone. "What is so funny?"

"Oh I don't know. My mind…the beta waves are forever altered because of the beacon and cipher, so much so that now anything I encounter that is remotely prothean thinks I _am_ prothean and responds to me. I'm bounded body and soul to my wife who happens to be an asari. In fact we are so deeply bonded-a gestalt forever changed my physiology. And not more than a week ago you questioned my humanity now you say I'm a perfect specimen of humanity." Shepard sported her cockiest grin. "Oh I find it extremely hilarious."

Any retort the Cerberus operative might have offered died a premature death on her lips. She found herself looping in the unpleasant cycle of undervaluing and underestimating the Spectre's mind and abilities. Perhaps there was something of the Illusive Man's faith in Shepard after all. But the N7 would never willingly cooperate with Cerberus, never work with them. All of The Illusive Man's incentives, motivations and plans had failed-miserably.

"So." the younger woman said drawing Miranda's attention back to her. "What is so dire that has you barking at my guards?"

"Barking? Is that supposed to be funny? First it was that bloody song 'Who let the dogs out', then the crack about being a genetic mutt, now you say I bark."

"Honestly the pun wasn't intentional and I actually never ordered the message to be transmitted to you in that way. Liara however believed it was more than appropriate. Give her a little credit, she's still learning about the human concept of humour."

"Wait. Liara sent it?" This utterly flabbergasted Lawson. She had thought perhaps the quarian had done it, but certainly not the refined socially awkward almost painfully shy Dr. T'Soni. "I didn't think she had it in her to do something like that."

Shepard's lip curled into a wicked grin. "Tsk tsk Lawson. I would have thought TIMmy would have mentored you better, or at the very least your very expensive education should have taught you never devalue an enemy's will. Yes Liara has teeth and quite the bite when she wants to. She is a T'Soni, born of a pure line going back several generations. She carries her mother's strength and courage."

How odd it was that Shepard's words mirrored Miranda's thoughts so completely not seconds ago. "I meant the use of an old Earth song in a juvenile prank."

"It got your attention, pissed you off and made you believe what we wanted you to about us, me in particular. It served its purpose. Speaking of which…"

"You were right. I want something for my sister. More than safe conduct back to Illium. By taking her you called attention to her, my father will now know where to look. He will come for her. I went AWOL when I chased you to Omega. Cerberus…The Illusive Man may forgive me but I doubt very much he will sanction Oriana's transfer. Going to the Alliance is out of the question. I need you to arrange a way to get Oriana to safety, her and her family. You brought danger to her I need to do your hero bit, your duty and get her out of it."

"And in trade you'll what give me what information of Cerberus actions in this sector? No deal. You're an ardent loyalist. Do you actually expect me to believe for one moment your information will be significant or honest? TIMmy believes the only fit punishment for treason is death. I doubt you'll cross that line anytime soon. We've already traced some of your people's actions here. Your missing operative? Dead. Not by my crew, by Eclipse. They're dead too." Shepard delivered coldly "I'd offer my condolences on the loss of your thug but I don't think it's appropriate."

Miranda seemed to be caught completely off guard by the Spectre's words. "The—the operative have a name?"

"Garrus checked. Tyrone Rawlings. Apparently he had data on him that conclusively proves Cerberus's involvement in rachni experiments. The Eclipse were more than positive that he possessed a cipher to decrypt the data he had on him. According to logs Garrus found your man proved to be difficult to capture."

Lawson smiled at this. "I'm not surprised. Cerberus trains us well."

"Hmm… yes. I can see that. You're good at deception as well. I can appreciate those skills in spies. According to the logs Garrus found, Rawlings insinuated himself on a ship bound for the Attican Traverse, and won over the loyalty of the ship's crew who believed him to be a human dignitary on a mission of discovery. The Eclipse agents managed to disable the ship and hobble its defenses long enough to extract Agent Rawlings."

Lawson nodded. "I bet Rawlings and the crew didn't make it easy for the mercs."

"Indeed not. Eclipse lost a lot of men to obtain the asset. They thought it was worth it."

"As you thought when you captured me."

"I didn't lose anyone."

"You nearly did." Lawson flippantly pointed out. "Would my capture still have been worth it had you lost your turian?"

Shepard didn't answer.

Lawson allowed a slippery grin to slide onto her perfect lips. "That's what I thought. What of Rawlings' body…"

"Left alongside his killers. I'm not in the habit of collecting the corpses of my enemy. Why looking for a bunkmate?" The snarky comment was retaliation for what was said about Garrus. Shepard knew it but her anger was gaining a foothold over her better judgement.

Again Miranda was at a loss for words. The acidic tone and ice unsettled her. "Not everyone who works for Cerberus is evil! He was a man and he deserved a decent burial."

"I'm sure the families or at least friends of the deceased Eclipse members feel the same. They were men and woman too. Or when you called him a man did you really mean human?"

The operative looked away for a split second. The action that caught N7's eye was Miranda scratching her collarbone. A signal Shepard had picked up when Lawson was struggling with an uncomfortable moral dilemma.

"Oh! You did. You meant he deserved a burial because he was human." Shepard jumped on Miranda's tell. "As far as the evil of Cerberus is concerned did you forget I saw your bases, your experiments? Your people assassinated Rear Admiral Kahoku because was trying to find his missing men, trying to find answers as to why they were deliberately lured into a thresher nest. TIMmy wanted to recreate what happened with Akuze. I saw the aftermath of that first hand. Corporal Tombs…will never be the same after what your people did to him.

"Armistan Banes was one of your men, a man who tried to blackmail Dr. Michelle and sent a krogan merc to either enforce the extortion or kill her if she didn't comply. But he also had a hand in what happened to Kahoku's men. Of course when Banes didn't get his end of the job done you killed your own man. And I have yet to find one your people who doesn't want to put a bullet in mine and Liara's skulls. Including you."

"No you don't have to remind me, you documented that quite well in that little monster flick of yours. But that's the problem. That's all you see Shepard. Monsters. Some of us are good people, honest people, people looking a chance to be more than they are, or for a place to belong. Not all of us are xenophobic zealots. Back in the Twentieth do you think all Germans were Nazis or every Muslim was a part of the Jihad or were many of them caught up and in-between the shit-storm? Some were only striving to survive in a world torn by war and had nothing at all to do with the atrocities committed by the SS or the Taliban and _al__-__Qaeda__. _

"I know your view of us is tainted by what you've seen, what happened to your wife and child. But know the Illusive Man never ordered it. How many times do I have to repeat it? It was Udina. Acting alone. He is the one who hired all those bounty hunters and mercenaries. If my boss wanted that, he would have sent someone more discreet, a professional assassin and it would have made to look like an accident not a hit that puts you on the defensive. Think about it for one moment.

"Yes Udina is affiliated with us but that revenge thing was his own agenda not ours. Cerberus isn't the big bad boogieman you believe us to be. Not all are within Cerberus are guilty of those…actions. And you got my number wrong. I don't want you or your wife dead, Shepard. Work with us Spectre. You don't have to join us, but realize the potential here, what we can offer you. We want the same thing you do; we need to stop the collectors and we need your help to do so."

"Is this the part where I take a bite of the apple?" Shepard took a step towards the cage, her face implacable. "If you want to tempt me Operative Lawson you're going to have to do a lot better than toss my sense of duty back at me. If you claim to know me, read me as you say you do then you know I won't jump into bed with you with offers of resources. You already know I'd never leave an innocent to suffer a fate I introduced to her, even if she is the sister of an enemy agent. Do you have any other things on the table, something I can actually use?"

Miranda was silent for a time. The Illusive Man had placed her in charge of recruiting Shepard by any means necessary. He had placed his full trust in her capabilities to get the job done. If Shepard walks then the mission has failed and she wasn't going to allow that to happen. By any means necessary.

"I have a list of names," she said after several heartbeats. "Not Cerberus operatives, people we were hoping to recruit to battle the collectors. They're professionals in fact you already have two on the list: Professor Mordin Solus and Zaeed Massani. Of the others: one is a professional thief, Kasumi Goto, one of the best if not the best entrymen and tech experts. Another is an assassin, a drell named Than Krios. Hunting and tracking down the tiniest mote of leads to lead him to his prey are one of his finer points and you should know he did not show for Udina's little soirée. Another is an asari Justicar named Samara. And there are two who are little on the outside…of well everything, really. A krogan scientist named Dr. Okeer and a….ex-convict called Jack. Okeer is working with a bunch of mercs though we don't know if he is doing so willingly. And Jack is the most powerful biotic humanity has ever produced – apart from you of course.

"I can get their dossiers to you and you can see for yourself how usable they can be to your mission. Whether you recruit them or not is up to you. I know you already have a fine crew, a trusted squad but Cerberus will actively seek these individuals out and request their aid. If they knew you were in charge it would be easier."

"Cerberus is actively seeking outside humanity for help? I thought TIMmy wanted human domination, human advancement and independence from alien influence and yet your group will go hat-in-hand to aliens for help? I don't see them turning a blind eye to the Cerberus doctrine. The only one that might have is Massani but he's on my crew now."

"True they would never follow us," Miranda conceded. "But you…you are another matter. They will follow you."

"You get me and I tag them is that it?" Shepard sneered. "The Alliance is already using my face as a recruiting poster, sorry I'm already committed elsewhere. The Brass gets a bit tetchy if you spread yourself out like that. Sends the wrong message." Shepard unfolded her arms and placed her hands on her hips. "Why is TIMmy so interested in these people, besides being professionals?"

"You already know what Professor Solus brings to the table. And you wouldn't have pressed Massani into your crew if you didn't believe he has skills you need."

"Wrex and Aleena's idea not mine, but I value their opinions."

"But not mine."

"I don't trust you."

"And if you did?"

At first it didn't seem that the Spectre was going to answer. She studied the older woman for a moment before drawing a breath then said. "Hypothetically speaking lets pretend your little press gang meets with up with these professionals and they don't want to join. Will you do to them what you did to that boy Veetor'Nara nar _Neema_?" Shepard's blue eyes narrowed into ice cubes. "In case the name doesn't ring a bell I'll remind you. He was the quarian kid back at Freedom's Progress; your interrogation team kidnapped him to get information about the collectors. Cerberus ripped off his fingernails with a pair of pliers as well as his eyelids. These professionals might give you more of a challenge considering they are not terrified children."

There was little Miranda had to argue the point into her favour, Shepard wasn't only playing with a stacked deck, Miranda didn't even have any card to play a hand. Even she was appalled at the lengths Kia Leng had gone to harvest information from their captive. Pel had been the same before he was killed in his action in his mission to recover the Asset from the Flotilla.

There were too many in the Organization that believed ardently that aliens were nothing but freaks to be dealt with like their fantasy counterparts in sci-fi vids—eradicated, eviscerated and vivisected and not necessarily in that order. All because apparently it was human's God-given-right to rule the universe. The Illusive Man found their zealotry a useful tool when needed, hell many of them now made up the bulk of the neo-troopers. And he wasn't exactly opposed to vivisecting aliens if it led to the Cerberus doctrine of human advancement: nothing more, nothing less. Unfortunately these zealots along with Terra Firma also made the news in a very negative light and turned many against Cerberus. Many who might have joined the Cause were repulsed by the sycophantic xenophobic zeal. The Illusive Man did not see these as a deterrent however. And he used them as they were meant as pawns. But for many more saw the truth and the necessity of Cerberus its true purpose and what it could mean for humanity.

"Cerberus has a mission to stop the collectors. It's the same as yours. We can either do it or talk about it." Miranda found her voice at last, tired of the arguments.

"Way to influence people Lawson. I can see you're a real motivator. But I'll concede this. It is time for action."

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME MEMEMEMEMEME

Shepard left the brig feeling less confident than when she entered. So far the Council had not sanctioned any action to protect the colonies in the Terminus Systems. Granted it was out of Council space jurisdiction. The Council wasn't taking the Reaper threat seriously, they we not convinced that the raids on human colonies was anything but raiders despite the fact there was no structural collateral damage that would surely follow such a raid. Even presenting them with the data from Freedom's Progress wouldn't move the Council. Simply put the colony was in the Terminus System. They could not become involved. Humanity knew the risks.

The conversations Shepard had had with the Council replayed over and over in her mind. Human colonies forfeited the right of protection when they left Council Space. When objections were raised that the plight of Freedom's Progress was ignored because it was a human colony and that the Council would interfere if were one of their worlds, an asari world like Illium for an example you could bet your last credit chit the Council would intervene.

Of course it was pointed out coldly by Tevos that while Illium was a border world between the Terminus Systems and the Asari Republics it was still just within Council Space. Most of the Crescent Nebula Illium's system called home was actually Terminus controlled. **Illium **served as an important entry point between the two. Earth had no such colony, or at least no colony as illustrious as Illium. Most were frontier worlds with more prefab buildings tenements than testaments to modern or classical architectural engineering like Illium.

Devil indeed.

Shepard reflected back to her days in high school one of the few times she had a flesh and blood teacher and not a computer. The class was Philosophy. Her professor who had a more Socratic outlook to life once said:

'In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times unimaginable warfare, many military leaders believe that it should be fought by another kind of evil. Thus, evil has been overcome by another kind of evil. But how can the masses accept this? Can we morally justify the means to achieve an end? How does this make us any different? The enemy has their codes, their laws, their moral justifications and their own philosophies. Their adherence to it is no different than our own to our own beliefs, creeds and ethics.

'Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. Pacification is not the answer, never was, never can be. But is retaliation?

'In times of warfare and the utter darkness that it brings it is easy to lose our faith in the power of good to overcome evil. When confronted by acts of terror, for example, we don't even consider turning the other cheek. Instead, we respond with "a different kind of terror." Although we often use the same means as the terrorists to achieve our goals—they bomb our colonies, we bomb their worlds. We feel such means are warranted, because our cause is just... But if all we are doing is adding to the body count, I question how much good is really accomplished.'

'Do I fight evil with another kind of evil?' Shepard's mind went on a philosophical walkabout. Accept Cerberus help; use their resources to stop the collectors? They killed my daughter. Well no Udina did, but TIMmy allowed it. Taking their help will have a lot of strings attached. It's treason! But damn it they are the only ones willing to help. The goddessdamned Council always dragging their feet, always denying our pleas for aid. Okay okay granted they're dealing with the crises of the Kingu comet on Belan and a new war.

'Yeah bet the hanar are pissed about the scientists saying it was harmless. Pft. Probably the same damn panel of scientists that looked at Sovereign's remains and said 'Oh yeah that's nothing to worry about. It's geth. Has to be. Geth are incredibly advanced self-evolving AIs. Retrofitting a derelict ship is only a trivial concern for them. No need to worry about "theoretical enemies."' Even as her mind ranted her fingers actually made the air-quotes which turned more than a few heads of passing marines to look a little oddly at their CO.

Shepard paid no heed as her internalizing continued its AWOL fling with airing out her frustrations. 'Their fracking ancestors were probably the same guys who opened the front gates and said "Sure park that giant wooden horse in the town square, it will be swell. What a nice parting gift," fracking idiots. Their genepool doesn't just need lifeguards it needs a thorough dosing of chlorine.

'Same goes for the Council. "Help human colonies absolutely not, why should we?" But hell an attack on Taetrus and everybody responds. And why not? It's a turian world so of course there'll be an intervention. Taetrus actually has a Primarch. Idus Valen former Minister of Agriculture gets the bloody job by succession…he cries out "This is an act of war" and the damned Council steps up to the plate. Human colonies have governors, guess it's not an important enough title to warrant respect from the Higher-ups.

'Even the goddessdamned Vol Protectorate gets involved with Taetrus. '"This is an attack against all civilized colonies of the galaxy."' Her internal voice mocked the volus' speech pattern complete with the hiss of environmental suit's respirator. Her face pulled into a heavy scowl. 'But hell Freedom's Progress-all life gone! Gone and it's pirates and we can't help because it's in the Terminus Systems?! And they treat it like it was nothing. Who cares, right?

'Taetrus gets millions of turians in dozens of cities to march in solidarity with the victims of the Vallum Blast. But what did Eden Prime get? Terra Nova get? Nothing! How many humans have to die to have the Council look our way? Yeah sure okay the death toll of the Vallum Blast was hundred and fifty thousand. But the collectors are systematically harvesting humans from our worlds. And nobody gives a shit.'

The scowl deepened. 'That isn't true, the ones that do….Shit! Shit! SHIT!'

'_Melethril, you have worked yourself into a rather deep lather_.' Liara's words were like a bucket of cold water thrown in the blaze of anger combusting in the Spectre's soul. Hearing the asarian word 'lover' had the effect of pulling Shepard out of her sulks and brooding with even greater effectiveness. '_What vexes you so?_'

'_I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to _hear_ all of that_.' Shepard sent. _'I'm frustrated.'_

'_That is putting it mildly.' _there was a lingering worried tone to the asari's telepathic words. '_So tell me_.'

'_It's…I'm just blowing off steam, Babe. That's all don't worry about it. I'm fine._'

''_Are you sure?'_

'_Yeah.'_ Which meant of course meant she wasn't fine. Liara knew whenever that particular word escaped her bondmate's mouth it meant Samantha really wasn't fine at all. But if the archeologist pushed her human would close down tighter than a geth colossus in repair mode.

'_Very well. Perhaps you could vent that frustration out on the gym floor with me. What do you say about playing doubles at an echo game?_'

'_I don't know...'_ a pause of breath. '_You know what? Actually yeah. Let's do it. Meet me in five.'_

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME 

"Stand up." Naga'sadow ordered Miranda as the young huntress entered the brig.

"Why? Am I going somewhere." the human said as she remained seated on her bunk.

"The Spectre has ordered PT for you. Now get up." the order would not be disobeyed again.

Miranda half expected to be man-handled as she stepped past the threshold of her cell. But the asari guards made no more aggressive move than to flank her, two at her immediate right and left and two directly behind. They weren't even carrying side arms not that the huntresses needed such to subdue their captive should Lawson be daringly stupid enough to make an escape attempt.

Lawson almost asked why she was given this 'privilege' when it dawned on her; it was within the Council bye-laws concerning the welfare and care of POWS. If not imprisoned in an interment camp where there was a limited amount of freedom for inmates in the yards, all POWs were give one carefully monitored hour of exercise privileges outside their cells. Such privileges were given once a week, bi-weekly if said inmate was a trustee. Of course Shepard would not renege on standard procedure of Lawson's imprisonment. Even the interrogations had not technically stepped over the line, even with the monster-flick and her sister dangling before her like a carrot on a stick.

Miranda elected to keep any further comments to herself. With nothing to look at over the past week but four walls and sour-faced asari, the change of scenery was more than welcome. She had a dread feeling if she said something, anything her guards would undoubtedly view it as a breach of good behavior and put her right back into her cell.

Over the past few days the Cerberus agent started to put names to faces. Of the nine that were on her guard rotation two stood out more than any of the others. There was Nual and Naga'sadow.

Both had very distinctive face tattoos though that was not uncommon amongst asari commandos. Miranda highly suspected that before meeting with the turians, asari huntresses did not as a rule permanently mark their faces or back to signify they were commandos and not just into ink.

From what Lawson had seen many asari opted for more subtle ink-work such as a single line of colour going down the middle of their lower lip as the Consort Sha'ira possessed. Others like T'Soni had opted for 'eyebrows'.

Naga'sadow's face markings were not so dissimilar to those of T'Loak's. The huntresses had a single line of deep purple going from her lower lip to her chin and had similar 'arched eyebrows' that swept back along the lower tendril of her crest that curved back around to under her eyes. The design half reminded Lawson of a priestess's headdress, the sort that T'Soni's mother wore. Or perhaps they were more akin to the jeweled adornments the operative recalled seeing on Justicar's Samara's face in the picture within her dossier.

Nual's markings much more resembled those of Councilor Tevos, though she had opted for a pale lilac rather than white.

It was this latter huntress that drew Lawson's attention and perhaps she found far more disturbing than the frozen contempt on the other's face. Nual seemed far more intent on watching the operative closely than her chilly partner. It was almost as if the maiden was half expecting Lawson to sprout horns and a forked tail at any moment.

Miranda could accept and appreciate Naga'sadow's pragmatic demeanour as it was similar to her own. The huntress wasn't any different from any another guard holding watch over a high profile criminal. There was distain but also pitiless professionalism. Naga'sadow was doing her job because it was required of her. No more, no less. It was the quiet hate police officials held for those who trespass malevolently against innocent lives.

Miranda surmised that Naga'sadow was the sort of guard that would have called out 'short-eyes coming through' as she placed a pedophile into the general populace of a prison. And be momentarily distracted for a certain period of time until she extracted 'victim of inmate justice' and placed him in solitary for his own protection.

Nual on the other hand was the type of guard that could not fathom what motivated someone to do such grievous harm to another. It boggled her mind. She watched over her charges and performed her duty because she swore an oath and believed in it.

Strange that both these woman Miranda fixated upon fit the nature and demeanour of Spectre Samantha Shepard so perfectly.

Upon arriving at the gym Miranda pulled her attention away form her guards to her environment.

The gym was fairly typical of those found on larger starships. A couple of treadmills, bench presses, cross-trainers and exercise bikes, power systems and multi-gyms, all utilized by humans and a few salarians and a couple of asari. There were two sparring rings which were currently being used by turians. But the thing that drew Miranda's attention was the area cordoned off by forcefields; obviously the space was set aside for biotic training. It reminded the Cerberus operative of a gym franchise designed and built by asari engineers called the Cube for the sole purpose of exercising biotics outside an official dojo.

Within the cordoned off area a line of taiko and kodo drums lined one of the walls. It might have drawn a curious look from the brunette had she not already been familiar with echo game. She actually seen a variant of it performed at Cirque du Soleil on the Citadel a few years back.

'Cirque' as most have come to call it was self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus acts and street entertainment which started back in the late twenty century by a Canadian entertainment company. It was still going strong centuries later; the only difference was that it now contained talents not only from Earth but from several races within Council space. It wasn't actually all that surprising that the asari took a shine to it, indeed they were quite the acrobats.

To see the echo game being performed in its true martial setting would have been a real treat. Apparently however today was not going to be that day. Today it was melee training with a combination of traditional katana (though the ones being utilized were of the wooden practice variety) and new OMNI-blades. It was practical to hone these skills for more reasons than one.

The innovation of kinetic shields and biotic barriers led many military agencies galaxy wide to reintroduce melee combat back into their regimens for one simple reason. Most shield technology reacts proportionally to the amount of kinetic energy of incoming matter, blocking fast-moving objects like bullets but not slower objects such as one thrown by hand such as a combat knife or even swords.

Biotically created barriers tended to differ as they were organically created by the user and not outside tech, still the principles were the same. Kinetic barriers aside if a biotic added the _shockwave_ to a swords cutting motion the action tore through the air like the ripples upon the surface of water as a stone is skipped across it. The impact alone was enough to strike even the most stalwart of foes off their feet if not out right kill them.

The OMNI-blade was more akin to a combat knife or even the more archaic bayonet. Training in its proper use and effectiveness was no less crucial. One could say duck behind a low wall pull over an unsuspecting target and plunge the blade into the chest cavity or throat. The life of the enemy was snuffed out almost without detection from other hostiles.

"Look I don't care if you spend your hour just standing around but if you are going to use the gym, just get to it." the sharp voice of Naga'sadow pulled Miranda back from her musings.

The operative simply nodded her head and went for the treadmill. It was stationed just at the right angle for her to watch the biotic practice area. She set the speed at a leisurely pace which would allow her to study the scene before her without having to concentrate on what she was doing.

Her interests lay in her captor Samantha Shepard. To be sure she had earned both title and ranks of the Spectres and before that the N7. Yes Lawson was a Cerberus woman through and through but as just a woman, a human she was proud of the N7s. They were a match for any STG operative. Was it any wonder that the Council went headhunting for their first human candidate into the Spectres amongst the N7s?

There was something to be said about those who had earned that rank. Shepard was the best of the best. The N7s had their own classifications for the skills their operatives possessed – Destroyers, Demolishers, Paladins, Slayers, Shadows and Furies. Kai Lang was an N7 Shadow before he was court-martialed and imprisoned. His infiltration skills were highly prized by TIMmy (damn and blast Shepard! Now she had Miranda referring to her boss with that infantile nickname). Shepard herself was undoubtedly a Fury, an N7 adept with implant-aided biotics and guerilla warfare skills.

But to look at the younger woman's skills with the blade, Miranda wondered despite Shepard's prowess with biotics even before the changes brought on by the prothean tech and gestalt if she hadn't been tagged or even requested to be trained as a vanguard when in basic and thus when she became an N7 was inducted as a Slayer.

The power of a biotic was incredible and many feared it, calling it unnatural and shunned those that possessed it. Physically biotics tended to be stronger than mundanes. They could sprint at full speed for five kilometers before they even began breathing heavily. Their reflexes were quicker, their minds and senses were sharper than most could imagine.

When necessary a biotic could channel the dark energy though their bodies, giving them bursts of energy that allowed them to do seemingly impossible feats, performing full flips from a standing position, survive falls from incredible heights uninjured; leap vertically ten meters or more.

A biotic was competently aware of their surroundings at all times, sensing the presence of others. Sometimes they could even sense their intentions. This of course lead to the belief that a biotic could read minds. So far the only race capable of that were the asari but that didn't stop the rumor mongers from raving that a biotic could steal your thoughts and control your mind.

Turians and humans tended to have the same distrust of biotics of their own kind but paradoxically accepted the asari as is. Perhaps because for the asari it was a natural state as much as it was for some species to possess bioluminescence. Some things were meant to glow other things not so much.

A biotic herself the dark haired woman appreciated true mastery when she saw it. And there were none better at commanding dark energy than an asari, though some humans came awfully close. Yes her father made sure she had incredible biotic prowess, but perhaps Shepard was right. It was Miranda's own will that allowed her to do what she did, accomplish what she did with the gifts given to her. Her father had nothing to do with it.

And there was that bloody 'thing' again. Back in full force making Miranda question long held beliefs and concepts this time not about Cerberus but about herself. Damn and blast Shepard again!

Lawson watched as the Spectre threw a stasis field on her target on the second tier catwalk above their heads before 'blinking' out of sight and reappearing in a biotic change next to the asari with her sword at the exposed blue throat. She lowered the wooden blade immediately and kissed said asari on the lips.

"Commander!" XO Shiala chastised her student. "We do not kiss the enemy."

"We do if she's cute." Shepard flashed her most charming lopsided grin.

"I do not think 'she's cute' qualifies as a way to overcome your enemy." Liara said trying to sound firm but the corners of her lips belied her amusement. "Besides I'd be very put out should you kiss any one other than me, _Melethril_."

"Don't worry Angel Eyes I won't be kissing Reapers, collectors or TIMmy anytime soon."

"I should sincerely hope not." Liara tossed back.

Shiala frowned and blew out a long measured sigh, she knew outside meditations and confronting others in sparring the two maidens should never be paired in classes. They both took a few too many liberties with each other. It was to be expected of newly bonded couples to be sure but frankly it was a pain in the ass to have to teach around such hormonal distractions.

On the plus side the matron had to admit it was good to see them strengthening their bond after the incident on Omega. A few days past Liara had come to Shiala and spoke to her at length about her concerns over the undue influence Aleena had over her bondmate. There were more than a few times when Liara's heated frustrations and chilling anger toward the bounty hunter reminded Shiala of her Lady Benezia when they were onboard Sovereign during those last days.

For now it seemed serenity had settled over the maidens, their bond fortified. And so the huntresses put up with their playfulness. Shiala admitted seeing them both dance in the choreography of battle was something to behold. Each anticipated the others movements as if they were their own. Each was extensions of the others body. No words passed between them, no hand signals just sublime unification—a synthesis of mind, body and biotics.

While one threw a stasis the other used a warp-throw, a barrier bubble to protect whilst the other sent out shockwaves at the target. It took years for huntress on the same squad to form such perfection with each other, Sam and Liara did it without even trying. Occasionally one of them would call out 'Now!' and the other answered with one sort of attack or another that melded seamlessly with the others spontaneous move. Together Shepard-T'Soni pair was a force to be reckoned with.

Shiala wasn't the only one to be a bit disgruntled by the commander's playfulness with her display of affection for her sparing partner. Miranda while impressed with the ten meter leap from the ground to the second story cat-walk practically scoffed for the scene that had followed. She couldn't pin Shepard down. One moment the Spectre was the conquering hero the next the dark haired woman acted like a teenager. Had she not seen at first hand Shepard in battle with the united merc army on Omega and a victim of the shadow-strike Lawson would have doubted Shepard's combat prowess.

It was as if the Spectre deliberately wanted others to always underestimate her. There was a clear strategy to this tactic. The enemy always overconfident was sent reeling when they realized just what a powerful force Shepard truly was. The Spectre did not strut about roaring like a lion or chest pound like a marine gorilla. Rather she slipped in like the shadow of the ghost and struck. Like a viper. Like an asari huntress. The more Miranda thought about the more she started to think of another animal the Spectre reminded her of. If the N7 officer wanted others to fear her she allowed just a glimpse of her strength via reputation, simply saying her name aloud. Like the fin of a shark rising above the waves, the very mention of her name gave many pause.

Only the foolish tempt the shark needlessly. Unless of course you mean to capture it. And the Illusive Man meant to land this 'fish'. Lawson felt her mind going back to when she had gone AWOL in order to free her sister. No one had been dispatched to stop her. She almost feared that either Jacob Taylor or Kai Lang might have been sent to either bring her in or slay her. But there had been no one. Even if an attempt had been made Shepard would have informed the operative. Shepard would have boasted that the rescue attempt had been thwarted or gloated that she was right about The Illusive Man's darker motives if she had stopped an assassination attempt. Lawson was sure of it. So was she chum? She was!

'I'm the bait to catch the shark.' Miranda mumbled to herself.

"Time's up." Naga'sadow said drawing the Cerberus loyalist back to the reality of her present condition and where she was. "Time to hit the showers then back to your cell."

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME MEME

The Phoenix project was thus far a success and the Illusive Man was well pleased. The Project lead Dr Henrico Vorschslagg had developed several classes of warriors who were far superior to their Alliance counterparts, and more than a match for any alien.

There were four classes of neo-soldiers developed by Vorschslagg: Phantoms, Centurions, Nemeses, and Dragoons.

Phantoms had been described by other Cerberus troopers as 'goddamn ninjas on speed'. A more than apt description considering they were agile with a wide array of offensive and defensive capabilities, including particular specialization in evasive maneuvers and firing from cover. Like their N7 and asari counterparts, Phantoms were able to create a personal barrier for greater protection.

The Illusive Man wanted more than swift adepts, he wanted warriors who were blademasters. A biotic charge whilst dealing a blade was just as deadly if not more so in some cases than gunfire. It was why each phantom was armed with a monomolecular blade and biotic shielding allowing them to engage in close-quarters combat. Likewise they could briefly cloak in order to recover from injuries. No doubt if one were ever to be put down, their deaths would have to be personally verified.

The Dragoons were heavy hitters and were equipped with the M-25 Hornet SMG and biotic lashes, which they used to lunge toward the enemy or slam the ground with them for a circular melee attack. They could instantly kill downed opponents with a stomp execution. While they possessed powerful armour, Dragoons were devoid of any shields or barriers whatsoever.

Given their nature as an armored enemy, Dragoons could not be grabbed over-cover for instant-kills. However they were still highly susceptible to headshots. This did not concern The Illusive Man; he wanted strength and power in the dragoons just as their ancestral namesakes who were mounted infantry with training in both regular infantry fighting skills as well as in horseback riding.

Centurions were the true tanks. They represented Cerberus's front-line tacticians. They were meant to enact The Illusive Man's strategic goals, although they had leeway to adapt as an encounter develops. Each centurion carried an M-96 Mattock heavy rifle modified to launch smoke grenades leaving enemies vulnerable to crossfire. Finally, they could attack their enemies in melee with electrified batons, which were far more powerful than ones given to simple regular Cerberus assault troopers.

Taking a note from both krogan and vorcha regen capabilities, Centurions were implanted with bio-synthetic tech. They were indeed tanks, able to take great amount of damage before falling in battle.

The last of the neo-soldiers were the Nemesis. They were Cerberus' sniper specialists. Customized implants allowed the nemesis to withstand the crippling kickback of the M-98 Widow antimateriel rifle, turning a redoubtable opponent into a force capable of inflicting instant death. A suite of high-tech scanning equipment made the sniper adept at maintaining cover, meaning a nemesis was usually spotted only after opening fire-assuming the target survived the first round.

The Illusive Man ensured that enemy forces be it Alliance or alien could never gain an example of nemesis augmentation technology by implementing self-destruct mechanisms that activated upon the sniper's death. This fact, combined with Cerberus forces' penchant for suicide when faced with capture, had made scientific study of their implants impossible.

Dr Vorschslagg was more than confident that Phoenix operatives were fully deployable when the Reapers finally came. The only problem currently was that there was only a handful of each class of warrior. If the neo-soldiers were to be as effective as the Illusive Man wanted, they would need more bodies. Recruitment wasn't nearly as high as it should be.

Using the clandestine press gangs was not a tactic that could be utilized given the collectors were absconding whole human colonies. The rumor mill was already flooded with accusations that it was Cerberus who was responsible for the disappearances.

It was a concern but not one of the larger issues the Illusive Man was currently handling. Lawson's abrupt departure needed to be handled swiftly. Taylor was already suspicious that she had in fact defected and not gone undercover as was reported. If he was entertaining similar ideas, he would be silenced-KIA during a mission. It would be good field test for one of the three Nemeses operatives should it come to that.

The Illusive Man had been ready to spread rumors of his own, saying that N7 operative Commander Samantha Shepard—Council Spectre had joined Cerberus. However he was holding fire for now as he highly suspected the Council would drive her towards him very soon. In no small thanks to the Taetrus war with separatists and of course the hanar's little problem with Kingu comet fallout.

The Illusive Man was more than confident that his protégé had been hard at work planting seeds of doubt in the Alliance and Council's loyalty to Shepard's agenda against the Reapers. Their combined inaction against the collectors played perfectly in the young N7's inevitable defection or at the very least alliance with Cerberus.

While he had not leaked rumors that Shepard was already his he had in fact ensured the Alliance remained dark about the truth of the collectors in the Terminus Systems. Operative Messner dispatched to Fehl Prime while undercover as a traveling merchant who selling hardware around the galaxy only recently reported in. The Alliance sent in a brash Lieutenant named James Vega and a Delta Squad. Vega's main agenda however seemed to be the overseeing the installation of new defenses, mainly guns and barriers to a spate of colony disappearances in the Terminus Systems.

Messner's reports mentioned an asari anthropologist named Dr. Treeya Nuwani who had a severe dislike for Alliance personnel. When Messner, Vega and Nuwani were barred from entering a particular location her dislike was revealed to Vega: the Alliance was interfering with her research ever since they stepped in. She angrily rebuffed Vega's offers of assistance; citing "grunts" like him were incapable of understanding her work. Messner caught that the name T'Soni had been dropped.

This bit of information The Illusive Man found intriguing. Insofar he wanted to know just what kind of connection there was. If T'soni became involved then Shepard became involved. Messner was not to interfere but to continue to ingratiate his services to the colonists and see if he could further the gulf between this anthropologist and the Alliance via Vega.

The Alliance had operatives on Horizon as well. They like Vega were there to install new guns batteries and barriers. And just like Fehl Prime the colonists were not exactly overjoyed to have them interfering with their life. After all they left Alliance Space to live free and independent lives. This too needed closer scrutiny; perhaps there was a way to bait the collectors and lure Shepard there as well. If the mission to stop them which meant going through the Omega Four relay then all viable information must be gathered.

But what the Illusive Man needed most was Shepard. For whatever reason the collectors wanted her and the Reapers feared her. The illusive Man wanted that power she wielded under his dominion.

Cybernetic eyes looked to the multitude of screens before him. He needed something to pull Shepard in, something she would find irresistible. Something she might perceive as a weapon to use against her enemies and this included Cerberus.

He needed a Pandora's Box.

He needed EDI.

But how to get the AI into her ship? The Illusive Man stared at the readouts streaming on the monitors before him. Shepard had to think it was her idea, that she had one-upped him. It couldn't come from Miranda the Spectre would never trust that. There were exceedingly few Shepard trusted without question or hesitation: her wife Liara T'Soni, her mother Admiral Hannah Shepard, Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett, Garrus Vakarian and the little quarian girl Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_ and the last who was her father figure Councilor David Anderson. Of the six there was only one viable name that could be used.

Lips curled at the irony of it. Now all he had to do was set the plan into motion the rest would see itself played out exactly as he needed it to.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME MEME

"This is Diana Allers with Battlespace giving you the most up-to-date reports on galactic events.

"**Galactic Organizations Pledge to Aid Belan. The Kingu comet's wake of destruction continues to dominate the news cycle. New video shows meteor showers caused by hot gasses breaking giant chunks of ice off the comet. No population centers were struck by the impacts, which left craters up to 180m in diameter. Meanwhile, the Intergalactic Red Cross, the turian Lifebearer Brigade, the hanar organization Healing Waters, and hundreds of other charities galaxy-wide have pledged their support to housing and feeding the uncountable refugees of the planet."**

**"In related news a video of the separatist group Facinus celebrating the Vallum Blast surfaced today. Footage shows noted separatist Kihilix Tanus praising pilot Vamire Squaron for his successful aiming of a private vessel and ejecting from it before it accelerated to its hyperlethal speed. The conversation implies that Squaron bypassed the ship's safety protocols by installing an improvised FTL plotter, using an archaic design no longer in service throughout Citadel space. The vid also shows Tanus criticizing the Turian Hierarchy for failing to respond to the humanitarian crisis on the planet Belan. "They are old xemna [herd animals], only responding when they themselves are jabbed". He then threatened a storm of lightspeed vessels, one for every week that Taetrus remains "subject to the human-appeasing lackeys that run imperialist space," referring to the Hierarchy and Citadel species."**

Shepard turned off the vid-feed and chucked the remote on to the coffee table in front of the sofas with a snort of disgust. Battlespace was one of the few news shows the Spectre actually watched despite the fact she wasn't a big news fan. And she liked Allers' work as much as she did Wong's, but sometimes you could have a little too much news. Especially the bad kind.

"Samantha, I was listening to that." Liara said her voice carrying a hint of disapproval from behind a computer screen in the office area of their quarters.

"Sorry Babe." Shepard put her bare feet down onto the floor and reached for the remote. "I'll turn it back on."

It was late in the evening and both women were dressed casually, Shepard in a pair of black N7 board shorts and a matching sleeveless midriff athletic vest tee-shirt. It was simple but Liara once remarked she looked downright sexy in the outfit not only did it show off her bondmate's finely toned body the asari found it provocative and could not explain why sports apparel did this to her. Shepard was more than happy to parade around in the ensemble.

Liara was equally dressed down in a lime-colored spaghetti-strapped silk tank top and green tie-die sarong tied about her right hip which allowed for her thigh to be practically fully exposed. Sam rated the whole get-up with a drool-factor of nine (in comparison to the wedding dress which was a plus ten). Like her bondmate, Liara was bare-of-foot.

"You need not bother." the asari shook her head. "I have news feed streaming on the secondary monitor." she pointed to smaller of the three scenes she had on-line.

"How you can watch all those monitors and not get motion sickness is beyond me." Sam said coming up behind her bondmate and placing a kiss on the windswept curves of her crest. She grinned wolfishly as her vantage point gave her a tantalizing glimpse of Liara's cleavage.

Liara indulgently smiled knowing full well her wife was enjoying the view. "You know I've worked with far more. It is easier than scrolling through window after window on one monitor. Motion sickness isn't an issue. Keeping everything streamlined is a much larger issue." she deliberately took a deeper breath which caused a very satisfying hitch in Sam's breathing.

"Humph, you should get yourself a VI aid or an info-drone. Have Tali create you one. She's very good at it. She always has Chikkitika and whatever she calls the other one buzzing around her whenever we hit ground side." Fingers began to gently stroke the underside of the asari's crest where it was most sensitive, giving as good as she got.

"Or I could use your VI copy." A devilish smirk appeared on purple lips.

"Don't you dare! That bloody thing is a menace. I do _not _sound like that." the Spectre frowned though in reality it was far more than a sulk, a childish pouty-face wasn't too far off the mark either. "Do I?"

Liara's grin deepened. She indulged in this more playful side of her bondmate. Of late Samantha had been in a spiraling smoldering funk. She feared it was only going to get worse as time progressed. "I believe that Mouse fellow exaggerated your personality just a teensy bit." Liara pinched the air with her forefinger and thumb. "I for one know you do not 'hit on' every asari that crosses your path."

"Oh come on! What about the rest of that crap. 'Justice, duty and the Spectre way?!"

"Well…." Liara smiled and tossed her wife a wink. "You _can_ be a little forthright at times, Shepard. But I still love you."

"Cha'yeah. Whatever T'Soni," Sam remarked feigning hurt.

Liara reached up placed her hand on the back of Samantha's neck and gently urged her human to bend down so she might kiss her properly. "I followed up on some leads that will benefit the mission." the prothean expert said in a more professional tone after the kiss.

"You're an archaeologist Angel Eyes. I don't need leads on ancient prothean tombs or artifacts. I need a bit of dirt." Sam returned the kiss with interest, biting the prothean expert's lower lip.

Liara giggled despite the arousal going straight to her core. "Digging in the dirt is what archaeologists do, Samantha. And my sources are not all librarians and curators. Some of them are more than a little…shadier than others. I would wager they are the same type that deals with…what is the term you humans use…tomb raiders? Yes, tomb raiders."

"You have sources now?" Sam was quick to pounce on the little revelation. It appeared that ever since her bondmate decided to pursue the new career of information broker Liara was swathing herself in shadows and secrets.

"A few. Sources, contacts. I've always had them _Melethril_. I am simply utilizing some of their other skill sets and pointing them in other directions. In this case trailing any Intel on the list of names you acquired from Miss Lawson. Miss Goto I find very intriguing. More so if Cerberus has painted her as a target for recruitment to confront the collectors."

"And you think this Kasumi is a tomb raider?" Shepard poised, her face contorted into a mask of confusion. "I thought she was supposed to be some sort of cat-burglar and hacker, not some buxom, scantily clad, bullwhip-cracking, dual pistol toting adventurer in a dusty beat-up fedora and hiking boots."

"You watch too many vids my love. I believe she is a bit of both burglar and hacker and yes maybe a bit of tomb robbing. However my best guess is that the majority of tombs Miss Goto steals from are the vaults of private collectors perhaps even museums to sell to other collectors." Liara looked definitely uncomfortable. "I have good authority that many asari are ardently appreciative of Earth's ancient Egyptian artifacts and some do not care how exactly they are acquired."

Sam did not say anything but she put real money on it that maybe big bad Mama T'Soni had a few of those artifacts in the family home.

Liara continued, "Some of my contacts have had dealings with her. Trying to pull anything about her on the net will only give us hyperbole and conjecture. She operates totally off the grid. Kasumi Goto trained in the arts of stealth and infiltration. She has "acquired" artifacts and information from all over the galaxy and yet maintains a completely clean criminal record."

"I can see why Cerberus would want her skills then. Hacking collector data bases will test even Tali's skills. Okay that's her figured out." Shepard leaned most of her weight on the back of Liara's chair while resting her arm on the asari's shoulder. Again her fingers strayed to the delicate curves of blue flesh. "So my Miss Shadow Broker in the making what else do you have on the other names?"

Liara's lips retained their coy grin at the reference to Shadow Broker.

"Of the Battlemaster Okeer not a great deal more than Miss Goto. He is a militant radical who is so ruthless and fanatical that even his own people turned on him. Okeer believes the ancient krogan philosophy that only the strongest survive and reproduce.

"He sees the survival of the weak and the integration of their genetics into the krogan gene pool as proof that krogan are growing weaker with each generation, becoming shadows of those who fought in the Rebellions. To that end he experimented with genetics and sold a great number of his kind to the collectors for the technology he required, earning himself a vile reputation amongst the krogan and forcing him off Tuchanka."

"So that's why TIMmy wants him. That old turtle made deals with the collectors not to cure to the genophage but to strengthen the krogan race. Make them superior."

"It would appear so."

"Sounds like he and TIMmy have very similar goals. Has me wondering if Ol' TIMmy wouldn't sell out the human race to make a select few uber-humans in his image." Shepard said coolly, for a moment the fingers stopped their idle play. "Not so sure I want a guy like this Okeer on my ship. But it might behoove us to investigate just what he knows about the collectors, their movements—anything really. Next name down?"

"Jack," Liara said academically "also known as Subject Zero is a notorious criminal whose crimes include piracy, kidnapping, vandalism and murder. I can safely say Jack is quite possibly one of the most powerful human biotics. She rivals you Samantha."

"She?" Sam's eyebrows formed a 'V' "Well I'm named Sam so I guess a woman can be called Jack."

"No _Sam_ is your nickname _Melethril;_ perhaps like you she utilizes a shortened version of her true name?"

"What like Jacqueline? I can see why she'd drop it to just Jack, I'm not particularly fond of Samantha. Neither is a particular tough sounding names. Kinda' pink frilly girly names really. Yeah not a big fan of _Samantha_."

"Are you not? You do not protest when I use it."

"Because it's you using Hon. I like the way you say Samantha. You pronounce it with such a soft lyrical lilt to it." Ruby lips kissed a blue cheek.

"Then I shall continue to do so." The kiss was returned though planted on Sam's lips rather than her cheek.

"Jack…hum? Yeah having a psychotic biotic on the crew isn't my idea of a good thing."

"And yet we had Wrex." Liara teased.

"Krogan. Not the same" argued Sam. "Subject Zero? That doesn't sound like a prison numeral designation."

"It isn't. At least none that I am familiar with. One could hypothesize that 'Subject Zero' was given to Jack as part of an experiment in a laboratory. Perhaps something happened to her similarly to Corporal Toombs. No doubt the Cerberus scientists did not call him by name but by dehumanizing designation like Subject Akuze. And further if Jack was Zero that means there were others-One and upwards. Despite her criminal record investing this Jack may be beneficial especially if she is inclined to go against Cerberus."

"But if she is their enemy why do they want to recruit her?"

"They want you." Liara said pointedly.

The dark headed woman nodded. "Yeah good point. Okay I'll look into it. Who's next? What about the drell assassin."

Liara didn't even activate the search profile on her computer. "Thane Krios. He's due to arrive on Illium in a few days. He may be targeting an asari executive, which isn't surprising given Illium's nature. He contacted a woman named Serena. She has an office in the cargo transfer levels. She can probably tell us where Krios will be once he arrives and perhaps even who his target is."

"That was all just off the top of your head?" Sam couldn't keep the surprise from her voice

A coquettish smirk curled purple lips into a prideful smirk. "I am a very good information broker, Samantha. The world of intrigue is not very different from a dig site except the dead bodies still smell."

Black eyebrows shot up into an unruly forelock. "You know you're starting to freak me a little here, Angel Eyes."

"You did not seem so off put when I recall prothean data from the top of my head the first time you questioned me about it. In fact as I recall you were rather grateful for it."

"Yeah but back then you weren't talking about bodies still smelling. And you were cute."

"Cute?" Liara's eyebrow markings arched in a very human-like manner.

"You bet. All poised and dignified, squirming in your seat with carefully reined excitement as you told us about the cycle of extinction. You bet your sweet blue-ass you were cute. Especially the way your bright eyes twinkled as you spoke. I love it when you get like that." Sam trailed a caramel digit along the soft curve of Liara's jaw. "Very cute." The human's mouth descended on her lover's in a sensuous, bruising hungry kiss full of need.

It was a kiss brimming with boldly expressive passion and fervently returned in gusto. Liara snaked her right hand around the back of Samantha's neck, roughly tugging her bondmate further into the kiss. Soft swollen lips parted as an inquisitive tongue slipped out to tease, coax and taste.

The bond flared to life imbuing their ravenous caresses with heated, carnal tension in the wake of unquenchable desire. The bond became a tempestuous demanding storm. Soft moans echoed in voice and mind. Sam's hands held possession over Liara's hips pulling her to her feet.

Abruptly, Liara withdrew from the kiss, her blue face flushed slightly more indigo with her ravenous want. She paused momentarily in a vain attempt to bridle her thirst and then leaned forward – her breath still coming in irregular gasps, her thoughts mired in longing- until her forehead rested upon her beloved's.

"We—we have work to finish."

"I would much rather do this." Sam responded her own breath just as labored. "Work will still be there after we make love."

"Or we can get work out of the way now and fully indulge all night."

"Oohh! I like that idea much better! See there is a reason I married a genius." The Spectre grinned mischievously. "Let's do that."

Reluctantly Liara pulled away, swallowed hard and made a very poor attempt of smoothing out the creases in her sarong. "Okay…" she said in a soft undertone. "But um stand over there." she pointed towards the fish-tank.

Sam looked behind her and pouted at the command. This was definitely not agreeable. She made no secret of her dislike.

"You're less of a distraction" the asari said sheepishly, "and a temptation."

A long exasperated sigh escaped the human's lips. Then in perfect drama-queen fashion she took three large paces backwards so her back was pressed against the cool glass of the aquarium. "Good enough?"

Liara shook her head indulgently at Sam's theatrics. "Later my dearest I promise." for a brief second Sam could have sworn she saw cerulean eyes go solid black before they were their normal azure once more. "We have but one name to go through."

"The asari huntress."

"Samara. If she's planetside she would have to register with a tracking officer. We start there. Tracking officers are usually found at transportation hubs. We just have to figure out which planet she is currently on or if she is in transit. It should not be that difficult."

"Why would Samara have to register with a tracking officer? She some sort of criminal too?"

"No. In fact quite the opposite. Samara is a Justicar, one of an ancient sect of asari warriors. She hunts down corruption, criminals whenever and wherever they cross her path.

"They sound like Spectres." Sam said.

Liara nodded and then shook her head. "It is more than that. They uphold a very strict code of ethics and laws. In compliance with the Justicar Code, there are no morally grey actions: every deed done falls clearly into right or wrong categories. Thus a justicar will defend a village of farmers to her dying breath if they are being attacked by bandits, but she will kill every person in that village if they are found to be running a smuggling cartel.."

"Wow. That's hardcore. They slay dragons too?"

"You jest but in the context you meant it, yes they have been known to be slayers of monsters. Errant ardat-yakshi to be precise."

"Ardat-yakshi?" Sam frowned. The name wasn't at all familiar to her.

"It is from an old asari dialect. It means demon of the night winds," Liara's voice grew soft and distant. "The closest equivalent I can think of in human terms is… a vampire. Though it is not blood she takes from her victims but their life-force during Joining."

Shepard made a face. "Sounds more like a succubus. So what - there are asari out there that do this?"

"You know the exhilaration we feel during our full Joinings." the asari's voice was hesitant almost shame filled.

Sam nodded. Her hand touched Liara's arm to ease the building tension in her bondmate. She did not know why but the subject erected a wall of contention within Liara's heart. Nor had the Spectre actually been aware her body was propelled forward to her wife's side until she was touching her. The temporary tactile exile had evidently been rescinded.

"There are a few who…who have developed a darker craving for this feeling, they are mutations from true asari. They can not Join a mind without killing their partner in the process. It is why they must be-contained. It is an illness one they can not fully control. A compulsion drives them, like the madness that settles within the minds of serial killers for that is in truth what they are."

"And a Justicar is sent to bring them in?" Sam asked.

Liara nodded. "The ardat-yakshi are great shame amongst my people Samantha. One we do not speak about openly even amongst ourselves. And the…condition…only happens to purebloods."

Now Sam fully understood Liara's reluctance to speak of it. "So on which planet do we look for Samara, Babe? You do of course realize there are quite a few of them out there."

Liara could not help but smile at Samantha's rather transparent attempt to return the levity to the room. "Justicars rarely leave asari space. If she is anywhere outside the Asari Republics we should be able to track her movements. Within the Republic it is only a matter of contacting High Command and simply asking for her. The request alone will reach her ears and she will come to us, wanting to know why a Council Spectre is asking for her."

"Make it happen." for a moment Samantha had left the room in favor for the Commander of the _Normandy_. "I have to wonder, of all the names of assassins, bounty hunters, and outlaw battlemasters, thieves and psychotic biotics we have one law bringer that by her own code must either kill or apprehend the rest of them. Not to mention that code of Samara's compels her to confront any Cerberus operative and make red paste out of them. How on earth did TIMmy ever hope to enlist her aid?"

"I do not know. Perhaps this question is best brought before Miss Lawson. Though it is speculative that in the Code there is a pretext to stop the disappearances of so many human colonies that supersedes her need to confront Cerberus operatives or the criminal elements they intended to conscript so openly"

The Spectre nodded.

"However _Melethril_ that can definitely wait until much later. I believe there is something we have to finish." Liara purred causing Sam to go all but weak in the knees.

"Much—much-much later." The blue eyed Spectre's voice deliberately dipped nearly an octave, her gaze became predatorily hungry. The bond once more flared with the lovers' desires.

Playfully Sam hoisted her prothean expert over her shoulder which earned her a very high-pitched squeal of surprised delight from the asari. In cave-woman like fashion Liara was promptly deposited on the bed with a deep throated primal growl from her human lover—who then began crawling on all fours over her 'claim.' Sam's body slowly nudged the asari's legs apart so she could lie between them while letting her hands came to rest provocatively upon luscious, azure thighs tantalizingly half-concealed by the silk cloth of the sarong.

Not to be outdone Liara trailed her hands along the strong shapely legs of the Spectre. The deft tips of her fingers trailed faint pulses of biotic energy directly into Sam's nervous system teasing the boundaries of their rapidly growing desire. Her reward was a low growling moan that sent shivers of delight down her spine and fluttered passionately in her belly.

When enraptured obsidian eyes locked onto smoldering blue the universe beyond them dimmed to nothingness, leaving only the ravenous zeal of their well-matched passion. Lips brushed together and embarked on a decadent journey of dominance and submission. Sam's thumbs began to lasciviously massage her lover's inner thighs, cautiously-sensually traveling upwards just far enough to make Liara crave more.

*Commander Shepard.* Joker's ill-timed voice crackled overhead like ice water. *There is a top-priority message for you. It's from the Council.*

"AHUUGG!" Shepard shouted, her entire weight gave way causing her to fall on her lover beneath her. "I swear to God I am going to kill that man. I'm going to march right up to that bridge and put his scrawny brittle boned ass right through the fucking hull!" her voice muffled by the pillow her face was planted in.

*Save a bit for me.* Liara grumbled. "Do you think slapping him with a singularity is going over the top?"

"Not by half." the Spectre huffed an exasperated sigh as she hoisted herself up off Liara. "Damn it…"

*Commander?*

*I copied the first time Lieutenant Monroe." the raven haired Spectre snarled. It was only sheer willpower that the Commander hadn't told the pilot to 'shut up and go fuck himself' which she very much wanted to do. Bounding off the bed leaving her wife, Shepard stomped to the door of the loft, each step indicative echoes of her growing pint-up frustration.

"Samantha. Wait. Wear your hoodie."

This froze the Spectre in mid-stride. She half turned giving the asari a puzzled look.

"You have um…perkiness issues." Liara said delicately and pointed with her head towards Sam's breasts. Her nipples were very much standing at attention.

"Aw, right. Thanks." Sam turned back to the office area and snatched the N7 hoodie from the back of the chair Liara had previously been sitting on and shoved her arms into the jacket and zipped it half-way up.

By the time she reached the CIC she was a smoldering pillar of aggregated resentfulness towards Joker and the Council. Ash and Shiala who were both at their stations wisely kept silent. They had heard the sharp reply with which the Spectre had answered the hail. Both were pretty sure Joker had the ill-luck of interrupting a rather heated intimate moment between bondmates.

"Patch to the comm-room, Monroe." The Spectre snapped as soon as she neared the galaxy map. She was most definitely holding a grudge.

*Um…yes Ma'am.* Joker's normally cocky voice carried the unmistakable tones of fear. He must have figured it out as well. The Commander had never quite forgiven him for interrupting her first would-be-kiss from prothean-expert more than a year ago. Interrupting matrimonial-bliss-time was never going to be pardoned. *Patching it through now.*

As soon as Shepard disappeared into the comm-room, Williams hit the radio. A mischievous glint radiated in her dark chocolate eyes. "If I were you Joker I'd find a very big rock or a maybe a very very big krogan to hide behind. Shepard looked positively murderous."

*Yeah thanks for the support, Mom. Any other good advice?*

"Running might be encouraged rather than hiding." Shiala added just as playfully. "With the Commander in congress with the Council it gives you a good head-start. I would go now before Dr. T'Soni comes down; it is she I would be more concerned about. "

*Oh thank you. Thank you so much for caring the pair of you.* before he switched the radio off he heard the two women most definitely laughing at his expense. "Yeah so not funny, ladies." he mumbled forgetting for a moment the co-pilot chair was not vacant but held Lt. Naga'sadow.

Her purple lips curled into a grin. "Do not worry, Joker, the _Normandy _shall be in expert hands after your inhumation. My condolences on that by the way."

"Oh buzz off you evil woman. It's not my fault the Council decided to interrupt mommy-and-mommy-private-time. Some co-pilot you are. You know you're here in the support capacity."

Naga'sadow's only response was to laugh.

"I think it's time to get the Commander a yeoman. A girly-girl-into-girls yeoman, that way she can take the brunt of the messenger killing and I can just fly my baby." Joker groused.

"Yes and when she irrevocably makes eyes at her CO, especially at that ass of hers it will not be death by Spectre; it will be death by prothean expert cum information broker." Naga'sadow jested.

"Better her than me." Joker grumbled. "Maybe we should start headhunting. You want the job?"

"I fly this bird too, Jeff Monroe. Better than you I might add. Find another."

"Oh you so _do not_ fly her better than I!" Joker protested hotly.

The asari huntress only grinned. "I call that a challenge. You will meet me in the flight-simulator next time on furlough fly-boy and we shall see just who the better pilot is."

"You're on. Oh and the loser has to be Shepard's new yeoman." The flight lieutenant boldly proclaimed.

"Then you had best polish up your leg braces, you will be standing for a very long time at your new post near the galaxy map."

There was silence, and then a frown fell on Joker's face. "Wait did you just say you eye Shepard's ass."

The asari didn't say a word.

"Oh you did! You did! You ogle Shepard's ass!"

"I do not ogle!"

"Liar."

"Oh shut up and fly."

More silence.

"She does have a very nice ass." Joker muttered softly fearful anyone but his co-pilot might hear.

Naga'sadow only nodded as they shared a secret smile.

MEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEMEME

Still fuming that her night with Liara was in ruins the Spectre stood at parade-rest before the four most influential rulers of Council Space wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, a tight fitting tee-shirt and a hoodie.

"Dressed a little informally aren't we?" Anderson asked.

Grinding her teeth despite the fondness she had for the man the human Spectre barely managed to keep herself in check. "I don't know what time it is on the Citadel but its twenty-two thirty _Normandy_ time. I was in the midst of-extracurricular nocturnal activities with my wife when the call came through. Being so very urgent there was no time to dress appropriately, _Sir_."

Anderson had the good graces to blush as any father might have after discovering he had interrupted an intimate moment between his grown daughter and her spouse. Tevos on the other hand had a bemused expression on her face. Velarn and Sparatus both coughed and shifted as mental images of their naked Spectre with her asari bondmate flooded their minds.

Anderson knew full well that Shepard could have been in full-kit in under a minute if needs be. This clearly was a full-on-protest for being so rudely interrupted.

"Commander," Tevos started diplomatically. "You will like this even less than you did being interrupted. But there is a necessity to it, especially now that your hunt is set for the Terminus Systems.

"My hunt? I'm not on any hunt! In case it slipped your minds I'm dealing with terrorists of my own! The collectors are harvesting entire human colonies. What about them? Where is their support?" Shepard snarled.

"It is not conclusively proven the collectors are involved." again it was turian's acidic words that cut across the Spectre's nerve endings.

"That's bullshit. Don't you dare pull that on me Councilor. You were sent the vidfeeds from Freedom's Progress. And don't you dare tell me the recording captured by one traumatized quarian doesn't amount to anything. You saw it, the Collectors were there!

"They were snatching bodies right out of their homes. It's the same story in colonies all across the Terminus Systems. Tell me if it were Illium that was attacked like Freedom's Progress would you still claim you couldn't act or would you send in entire fleets to hunt down the collectors wherever they fled?"

"It is a rather difficult situation," Tevos said "while we can not directly become involved something is being done. You'll remain active. Do what you feel is necessary, Spectre."

"What I feel is necessary? You haven't always approved of what I found necessary. That suddenly changes now that I'm going into the Terminus Systems?"

"Much will change." Velarn said. "Specters are the left hand of the Council. Often our agents are called upon to carry out acts that we can not openly acknowledge but are necessary."

Anderson was contrite as he looked upon his protégée. He had warned his counterparts that he should be the one to approach Shepard, to tell her of the plan. This was being handled poorly, they were treating her like a raw cadet. She deserved better. The former captain read the expression in her face, he knew what she felt—it was same as what he felt over twenty years ago when he had been blamed for Saren's actions at the refinery.

"Shepard…Sam I know you're frustrated, pissed off. Hell I am too." He gave a warning look to the others to keep silent. He wanted to do this his way from the start and by God he was going to finish his way. "The Council can't act in the Terminus Systems but you can. If you brought in the STG and Troops from Pavlon it will provoke a lot of unwanted attention right now. Attention we can't afford. Belan, the Taetrus war has done some serious damage and there are enemies of Council Space that are going to jump on this opportunity. Maybe it's why the collectors have chosen now to strike, and where."

"What about my asari commandos? You going to take them as well?" Shepard was fuming.

"Those commandos are-were sworn disciples of Matriarch Benezia not to the any of the city-states of the Asari Republics. They have since sworn fidelity to her daughter. As long as Dr. T'Soni is on your crew their presence isn't questionable." Tevos responded. "We can not support you openly as you continue your hunt in the Terminus Systems but we can give it to you peripherally."

The Spectre wanted to snarl out her frustrations but she kept her tongue stilled. Peripheral help was good as saying no help at all but on the other hand they wouldn't pull her from her mission either. Nor did they pull her human marines.

'Of course…the news feeds said it all. "T**he Council expresses its sympathies but can not become involved in a purely human matter.**" Pft. Least I should be grateful for that much.'

'_Do not forget we also have the list from Miss Lawson.' _Liara's mind touched hers._ 'Let us play into this. Use the loss of our people to our advantage in taking the fight directly to the Illusive Man. We have debts to repay.' _

'_I didn't realize I was transmitting; _Shepard sent_, '…that loudly.' _she added sheepishly. With bond reaffirmed and strengthened since the incident with Aria there was now an almost constant wave of communication betwixt the two lovers. The dampening of the bond seemed only admissible to stifle pain and other trauma from being directly transferred from one to the other.

The Councilors caught the slight distant look pass across the Spectre's eyes before her attention was drawn fully back to them.

"Actually you taking my troops helps me. In fact you're going to 'order' the redeployment of all but three of my science core. I'm retaining Dr. Chakwas, my wife and Professor Solus."

"What is this you're at?" Sparatus demanded vibrantly.

A coy smile spread across Shepard's face. "I have an idea. One that just might land us The Illusive Man. It's a long shot at best, and one of the best parts of this when implemented I will have the resources I need to fight the collectors without 'Council Space' becoming directly involved. You said you'll give me peripheral help, this is how you're going to give it to me."

Anderson grinned. If there was anything he trusted it was any idea cooked up in that young brain of his protégée.

"Let's hear it, Commander." the former alliance captain said.


	6. Peripheral

Chapter Six: Peripheral

AN1: In previous chapters I had gone back and done some very serious reworking / rewriting of a few things. Those familiar with the story before may scratch their heads and say that wasn't what was before, and have their willingness of disbelief jilted a bit. Just as the truth of Sam's real Father which is worked out when she is in the Vinculum and just after they lose Sparrow and Mamma Shepard comes to pay our favorite couple a visit. However, if read now, the chapters do flow in the direction I have taken the story.

AN2: Shepard's recruitment poster loosely based on a painting by deviantart artist named suicidebyinsecticide-d4wnn89

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

"This is an ambitious plan, Anderson. Do you actually believe it will work?" The question came from Sparatus. "You have placed a great deal of trust in your Shepard."

The four Councilors were seated around a circular tortoiseshell mahogany table laden with a plethora of food: Georgian style crawfish etoufee, lamb L'Arabique and braised artichokes, as well as thinly sliced ciabatta bread. The turian Councilor of course had his own dextro-based equivalents including the strong '75 durif red wine from the ardat-yakshi monastery. It had become a custom since the founding of the Council to have monthly evening meals together that was outside the political setting. Although politics were never far from the table.

"Maybe that's the problem, you don't trust her enough." David Anderson answered before shoving a forkful of lamb into his mouth. He chewed a few moments before speaking again. "She has done nothing but performed admirably, she is loyal and has carried out her duty."

A blue hand reached out from his left where Tevos was sitting, "Her duty isn't in question. But her ideas are...very unconventional."

"Isn't that what we encourage in _our_ Spectres? Or am I wrong in assuming that the Spectres belong to the Council as a whole and not just one race? It sounds just like what you did to her when the three of you grounded her. It was _you_, not Udina." Anderson pointed his empty fork at the turian sitting directly across from him. "You, Sparatus, practically ordered Udina to do it, to get Shepard under control. You shut her out at every turn, constantly mistrusting her, constantly questioning her every decision. I might have said baptism by fire but is fracking more than that.

"I have never heard you question, berate or mistrust any other Spectre as you have Shepard. Vasir has done some very questionable things during her tenure as Spectre. Her strong alliance to the Shadow Broker notwithstanding. And yet her word is as good as gold to you all and Shepard, who saved all of your lives, isn't given the same courtesy. I take extreme exception to that. She deserves better!"

There was an uncomfortable silence filled with food being shifted on plates by forks.

"Has it occurred to you that her actions as of late have become more erratic? We all know she has been heavily influenced by Prothean devices. And she was radically altered by the gestalt." Valern commented as he lifted the artichoke heart and bit into it. It was written clearly on his face that it had the taste of ash upon his tongue.

"Yes I know. And I admit, I am worried for her." Anderson's voice dropped to a near parental tone. "But I'm not going to allow this Council to railroad her. I know without a doubt that young woman will give her life without hesitation if her duty called for it. She'd even give her life for yours Sparatus, as she would for the rest of you. Try to remember that the next time you cut her up."

"We do not wish to 'cut her up.' But these changes in her are a true concern," Tevos said kindly. "So far they have not been wholly detrimental. How long will it be until she truly is mentally unstable? She courts danger too soon. Had we known about the changes in Saren..."

"They are nothing alike!" Anderson stabbed into his food, for a moment he thought he might have cracked, if not chipped, his plate. "He was a monster. Always was, only the three of you were too blind to see it. You just saw his mission records and lifted him up as one of your best operatives. Shepard's records are just as exemplary. Better, since she has no intention of murdering this Council and lead the enemy to slaughter everyone on the Citadel and purposely endangering the galaxy by allowing the Reapers to gain a real foothold."

The Reapers were a very sore topic with the Council. The majority insisted that they were fragments, dreams that scarred Shepard's mind from the several encounters with Prothean devices. Anderson believed in Shepard.

Again silence descended around the group, only the clinking of forks against bone-china plates and sounds of eating were heard.

"Tell me, do you believe this plan will work?" Valern asked quietly after several minutes of dead silence. "The probabilities of success are exceptionally low."

"I grant you, it will take some serious out of the box thinking," Anderson agreed. "But out of the box is where Shepard lives."

"Therefore it is bound to work." Tevos smiled knowingly.

"Not unlike her driving a Mako through a mass relay and crashing it into the Citadel," Sparatus said. "I suppose if anyone were to pull this off it would be Shepard."

"The question remains, how is she going to get this Lawson woman to believe her story enough to give up the location of this supposed ship or any other Cerberus bases?" Valern asked. "For that matter, how do you think she will manage to do what several Spectres, STG teams, your N7 and turian special ops could not do?"

Surprisingly it wasn't Anderson who answered Valern but the turian Councilor. "Based on her success rates with her crazy ideas, Shepard has managed to pull each one off despite the odds that have been decisively stacked against her. If it works what does it matter?"

"The whole reason Cerberus has facilities outside Council jurisdiction is to allow them to engage in illegal or unethical research without fear of repercussions. These installations are vital targets," Tevos insisted. "This is going to have to be very subtle. And we all know subtlety isn't one of Shepard's strong suites."

"Cerberus doesn't play by the rules. Neither can we if we want to take them out." Anderson's voice became stronger. "However on a side note, if strike teams complete their missions, there won't be any witness to file a report against us."

"We could send other Spectres and strike forces to hit the others," Sparatus said. "And there are other options." A very pointed look was tossed towards Tevos.

"No. _She_ will not engage. Furthermore, I do not wish her involvement in what is strictly Council business." The words were as deep as a well. So deep you could toss a stone in it and it would never hit bottom. "Never make an attempt to trade on my connection to her again, Sparatus."

"Understood Councilor," the turian growled. He might have understood but clearly he was unimpressed with the woman's answer.

Anderson was deeply confused by the inference. Who was this mysterious _her_ the turian mentioned? If this mystery woman could help...but the resolve in the asari Councilor's eyes stilled any notion of perusing the topic. Taking the direct approach as Sparatus had done was clearly not the answer. Then again, turians were not known for their keen approach to subtlety, not like the salarians, the odd human and most assuredly the asari.

Humanity's first Councilor shared a confused look with his salarian counterpart. Apparently he too was in the dark as much as Anderson.

"What about the Illusive Man?" Tevos wanted to know, deliberately redirecting the flow of the conversation. "Capturing him would be an ideal outcome. Unfortunately we have no pictures of what he looks like. All we have is a basic physical description."

"That will all change once Shepard manages to speak with him. She can get close to him," Anderson said. "She has given us a very unique opportunity. If Shepard can get in, get close, she can take him out."

"We must assume that the Illusive Man will suspect this very tactic and will have a countermeasure already in play," Valern said, his large eyes blinking signaling his disbelief this plan had even the remotest chance of working. "He'll use quantum entanglement communications to talk with Shepard. There is no way he will risk meeting her face to face."

Anderson smiled. "You don't know Shepard like I do. I've know her since she was a child. I've watched her grow up. Like her mother she was born with a silver tongue and can bluff with the best of them. And more importantly she has the gift of very unconventional and alternative thinking. All we have to do is follow the bread crumbs."

Sparatus' mandibles twitched in a turian's version of a frown. "I do not understand the reference."

"Old Earth fairytale." Anderson shrugged.

"Enlighten us," Tevos said again with a disarming smile. "Perhaps a lighter topic of conversation over what remains of our meal will make it more palatable."

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

In a remote region in Northern Minnesota, a man and a woman stood upon the back deck of a small cabin, overlooking a quiet pristine lake. The gibbous moon cast its sliver light upon the still waters which were so clear, it was like looking at glass. It was very early autumn; the trees had only just started to change their colours. The air had yet to turn but it was cool enough to warrant the use of light-weight jean jackets or hoodies. It carried with it the scent of fresh earth, moss and a cleanness that was impossible to find on ships, even those with atriums.

"I'm worried for her, Steven," Hannah Shepard said softly as she gazed out of the balcony's overlook to the lake. In the near distance a loon called out in an eerie tremolo. The wavering call always sounded so haunted to Hannah, in some ways the very sound reminded her of her daughter's expressions. They too had become so very haunted.

Another loon answered back, and a third, or perhaps it was not but an echo. Echoes were all everything had become of late. Echoes. Orders echoed, thoughts echoed, beliefs echoed-promises were echoed. Like echoes, they no longer had any true substance.

"So many things have happened to her so quickly-and so very few of them good." Hannah took another deep sip of her brandy. "She takes it all in stride, doesn't flinch, doesn't turn back or away. Just like she did when she was a little girl."

From behind her the Alliance's most decorated fleet admiral slipped his arm around his lover's middle and kissed her neck. "She hasn't even confronted me now that she knows the truth. I expected something… accusations, questions. Anything. I would have preferred that to this-this infernal silence," he sighed.

"She's a woman of her word Steven. Hell, she was a kid of her word. Make her give it, and you knew without checking that whatever you wanted her to do, it would be done, whatever came out of her mouth was true." Hannah smiled proudly. "You just had to manage to wrangle it out of her first."

"I know," Steven said. "She said she wouldn't say anything and she won't. But it isn't healthy. I want her to ask about us, about all of it. Why John when went along with the whole charade."

Hannah turned in his arms and looked at him. "And how do you explain that the marriage was entirely in name only? That we covered for each other so that I could have you and he could have his… dalliances? John has always been a good man, a good officer. And yes, there was something there," she sighed. "He has ever been a good friend."

Their friendship was solid - a bromance, deep and caring; the three of them, Hannah Shepard, Ernesto Zabaleta and John Sheppard, advanced through the ranks together. They were drinking buddies, poker buddies, always had each other's corner. Later came David Anderson and Karin Chakwas. Hannah loved setting her friends up with dates; David already had a girl named Kahlee Sanders so she didn't even try, and Karin she had tried to set up with a multitude of people. Hannah had never been able to pin her down exactly because it seemed the good doctor swung both ways. Plus, she always said her spouse was the Alliance and her children were the crew of her ship.

But of all of them Hannah had a far stronger relationship with John and Ernesto. It was almost as if she were helping them fish for their perfect mates. When the guys noticed young Lieutenant Shepard's infatuation with a certain Commander Steven Hackett, and that interest was returned, Sheppard and Zabaleta started to form a plan. The boys decided to help out their pal. John brought the subject before Steven and Hannah and the solution to their dilemma.

It had sounded so perfect at first. And it worked for a time, years in fact. But then Hannah began desperately wanting a child. John didn't. He didn't think it fair to bring a child into the mess they had forged. The presence of a baby made things difficult. And plans started to fall apart. Animosity grew between Hackett, who wanted to be the father, and the man who didn't. Before it got of hand John deliberately requested a transfer off of Steven's ship, to get himself out from under his command. After Sam turned seven, John didn't serve on any generational ship that his wife was stationed on, which wasn't difficult because she was always within Hackett's command. He stayed as much out of The Kid's (his nickname for Sam) life as possible. He claimed it was better for The Kid that way.

"He did make a go of it you know…trying to be a good father. In his own way he loves Sam." Hannah said quietly.

Hackett kept his thoughts of John Sheppard 'making the attempt of being a good father' to himself. As far as the fleet admiral was concerned, that man failed miserably. John was always making Sam constantly second guess herself, question her worth. By Gods he hated John Sheppard. That damned man had what regulations forbade him; the woman of his heart and his child. If regulations allowed it he would have taken Hannah as his wife and he would have been proud to call Samantha his daughter.

Another part of him was grateful the Shepard-Sheppard marriage was nothing but a fraud. John had his women and men allowing Hannah and Steven to be together. But his Sam was now caught up in all of it. No doubt the girl believed her mother stepped out on her 'father' and betrayed him. She didn't even know John Sheppard wasn't the victim here. None of them were. No, that wasn't entirely true, Sam was the true victim. Hackett wanted to look Samantha Shepard in the face—dead in the eye and tell her: 'Yes I'm your father. And I'm damn fucking proud of you kid. Always was. And I have your back. I always will.'

"The papers were filled today. The Shepard-Sheppard marriage is officially nullified," Hannah said out of the blue, her voice neutral. "Mutual agreement. As of seventy-three hours ago John and I are officially both free."

"Does Sam know?"

"She doesn't need that now. She'll get it into her fool head that she's somehow responsible, just like she did when she was thirteen." A great tidal wave of guilt settled on the proud woman. How many countless days and nights did her child suffer because of the accidents, because of her biotics? "I should have gotten those amps for her sooner, got her training sooner. She suffered all those migraines needlessly. I did that to her Steven, not John. I'm her mother, it's my duty to protect her and I failed her."

"We didn't know much about biotics then, Hannah. How long are you going to beat yourself up over that?"

"You don't get reprieve for doing harm to your kid."

"Han... maybe the amps would have helped early on or they would have made things a lot worse off for Sam. There are a lot of L2 out there who have been crippled because of their implants. And a lot more have gone mad. Like that lot that followed the Butcher of Torfan and killed three Alliance officers. I didn't have much hope for a peaceful outcome and I sure as hell didn't expect a complete uncontested surrender. But that girl managed to talk Major Kyle down without a shot fired. If I had sent anyone else it would have been a bloodbath.

"To this day I still don't know how Sam did it. There was another insane group that took a base on Chohe hostage and drugged the scientists working there. I had to order Sam to go in and take them out. She managed to neutralize the threat without a single civilian casualty. I sent her because she handled the Major Kyle situation as well as with incident Chairman Burns and the L2s that had taken him hostage. Burns was saved, and the majority of the L2s survived and it set in motion the Biotic Reparations Act.

"Maybe holding off until the invention of the L3 amps came out might have actually saved her life, if not her sanity, Hannah. Look at her now. She is a remarkable young woman, and despite everything that has happened to her, back when she was a kid and recently, she remains strong regardless of the changes she's going through. She's a rallying cry for our troops."

Hannah shook her head. "I worry it's going to burn her out. She struggled with CS, Steven."

"I recall you telling me, but she was seeking treatment. Chakwas cleared her."

Hannah scolded him with a look that said 'Of course she's not okay!'

Steven retreated swiftly and reevaluated his approach. Battling early-onset CS was no light matter. Generally if personal within the military was diagnosed with the condition they were pulled from active duty until they were not only cleared by medical physicians but by a panel of physicists. Even if cleared, said officer typically ended up piloting a desk. He doubted the Spectres were that much different when it came to physical and mental stability in their agents.

He couldn't imagine being forced not only to feel each emotion deeply, but incapable of controlling them. Emotions became mottled, confused and exaggerated, and oft times feelings were more dark than not. Sam was more fortunate than most in that it was not only caught early, but that they were able to reverse any neurological damage. The scares on the soul left by Cyan Syndrome however, were far more difficult to heal.

"I don't think those recruitment posters are doing her any favors. Maybe you should order the Office of Recruiting Affairs to use a composite image, get her out of the direct spotlight. Keep the image of a woman though." She gave her lover her crooked half smile; it was the same as Sam's. "I noticed you have one in the cabin and another in your quarters on the _Kilimanjaro_."

The admiral shrugged. "Only way I can have a picture of my daughter that nobody will question."

Hannah laughed gently. "Yeah I have one too. It's hanging directly across from my desk in my own quarters on the _Orizaba_ so when I look up I can see her beautiful face... and your eyes." She stroked the scared cheek of her lover. "Hell, even my flight crew have the poster in their rec-room."

"Mine does too. More than a few of my crew are crushing on her."

"Same story on the _Orizaba_, though they are more subtle, or at least they make a half-assed attempt at it, considering they know she's my daughter." She snorted. "I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Liara has one secreted away."

Steven shared the laughter. "I wouldn't doubt it."

"I am so grateful for Liara," Hannah said, thinking of her daughter-in-law. "I'm so grateful she's not Alliance. Regs can't stop them from truly being together. They get to share openly what we stole." The captain allowed tears to fall. "Promise me we're not going to lose her!"

Steven looked away unable to meet Hannah's blue eyes. "She's an N7 marine. A Specter."

"God damn it, Steven, then fucking lie to me! Tell me we won't lose her."

"We won't lose her, Hannah." Hackett kissed the woman he loved with his entire soul. "I believe in her. You can pay a soldier to do almost anything but you can't pay them to believe. And if there is one thing in this whole universe I believe in, it's Samantha Secura Shepard." He pulled away a little and raised his head to the stars like a baying wolf. "You hear that you fracking universe? I believe in my daughter!"

There were echoes and loon cries that answered back. And the kiss of a woman.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

Ex-Major of the Alliance Navy John Sheppard meandered into Joe's pub, his recent call of port. Since he mustered out he practically lived there, chucking darts, shooting billiards, the odd poker game and rum, a lot of rum to help pass the time. The damn thing was, every time he walked into this little nook on Mindoir he saw _her_ face. The Kid's.

Samantha _fracking_ Shepard: the goddamn hero of the Citadel, savoir of Elysium and Terra Nova. N7 Fury and humanity's first Spectre: two time recipient of the Star of Terra, the Palladium star and a dozen other medals. A bloody hero. He tried to drill that out of her head. To save her, but The Kid was as willfully stubborn as her mother. Sam Shepard did her duty, she was a guardian, and a protector just like he taught her to be. Then she had gone on and taken it much further.

The damn Kid had to go and prove she was more Hackett's child than his, and the damn thing is, The Kid just found out about it. Hannah told him she had figured it out soon after she lost her own child. John took a long drink of his rum. Han told him something about The Kid remembering the argument they had when she was thirteen. Apparently she heard him admit she wasn't his, her fear of being sent away because she was a frea... _biotic_ stopped her from asking about her parentage.

_I'm sorry… I'm not normal. One day I'll make it up to you, Dad. One day you'll be proud of me. Right now I'm just me, sir. I don't know how to be anything else._

He thought about those words a lot. Every time he saw that beautiful face, those blue eyes, he heard those words. He heard them every time The Brass pinned another medal to her chest. He heard them every fracking time he looked at those damned recruitment posters.

He hated The Kid for them. He hated her because he was grateful she wasn't really his. He hated her _because _she wasn't really his. And he loved her just as much for those very same reasons. He expected The Kid to confront him about everything. But she hadn't. Of course she had much bigger things on her mind, like the death of her wife's child. John made the attempt to think of T'Soni's daughter as The Kid's child. But he couldn't. There was no shared DNA; the baby really wasn't The Kid's. Sam was locked into playing the part of the other parent same as he was. Just like her marriage to that T'Soni woman because of that damned bond, The Kid had made the best of it. Just like he had.

Maybe it was just as well the baby died. Now The Kid was free to do what she did best and be a goddamned hero. You could either be a good soldier or a good parent - you could never be both. Han was a great officer, a good leader, but she wasn't the ideal mother and he was far from the ideal father, and The Kid's true father was never even in the damn picture. It wasn't regs that kept Hackett from taking part of the Kid's life; it was that he wanted to be an admiral more than he wanted be the Kid's father. John had made himself believe that so deeply that it became true for him. It was easier than the alternative, than the truth. Hackett was in love with the idea of being a father and he wanted to be a part of The Kid's life as much as Hannah wanted her. John even believed The Kid was never meant to be a parent, she was meant to be a Spectre. She was meant to be a marine, an N7, to wear the uniform. You can't be a parent and an officer both. It was impossible.

John's brown eyes looked at the poster again. There she was; the great Commander Shepard in all her glory, wearing black N7 Defender armor. The portrait made her look every part the proud Alliance officer. In her upraised left hand she was carrying an N7 Hurricane submachine gun and in her right an omni-blade. Behind her were gray clouds, smoke and the burning remains of a batarian slaver ship. Beneath it the slogan: 'Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of All Those Who Threaten It.' In the bottom corner was the N7 insignia.

"God you can't go anywhere without seeing that dammed poster," John muttered into his snifter. "They painted her up like some damned guardian angel."

A great misshapen three-headed shadow descended over him. He looked up to see to a very buff brunette woman that looked as if she could bench-press a Clydesdale, and flanking her were two hulking young men, one blonde, the other a redhead.

"Oh look, it's Twiddle-Dee, Twiddle-Dumb and Twiddle-Dumber. You three jarheads got a problem?" None of them looked more than twenty. They were obviously on furlough, but John knew a private trying to prove themselves when he saw one. And these three tits were drunk enough to purposely go looking for a fight.

"Yeah. You, old man. Shepard's a hero; she saved my colony on Terra Nova. Those fucking batarians were going to crash an asteroid into it. She stopped it." One of the hulks growled, the red head- Twiddle-Dumb. "The three of us joined up after what she did for Elysium."

Yep, sure as damn a nest of Shepard worshipers, just what he needed right now. Hell, it made his whole fracking evening complete.

"And she saved my mom and little sister when batarians were going to nuke our colony. She chose us over an Alliance spaceport," the woman said. "She saved thousands of lives that day."

Not to be left out, Twiddle-Dumber boomed with a drunken slur, "She saved my city too. The MSV Broken Arrow was taken over by geth. Those fracking clankers set that damn ship in a decaying orbit so it would hit Jonus. My planet. Shepard stopped it. So yeah, I take an exception when you insult her, asshole."

"Well ain't that just special. You want gold stars too?" John shot back. Not a particularly intelligent thing to do, but he was well into his cups and right about now he didn't rightly give a rat's left nut what happened next.

Beyond the notice of the four patrons, a balding man of questionable hygiene and a girth that contained multiple layers of natural insulation, watched with an experienced eye. A questing hand sought out what was under every bar: 'the barman's friend'. Back in the day it was a wooden cudgel which evolved into aluminum baseball bat. Today, or at least in this particular establishment, it was an M-27 Scimitar shotgun. Four heads swiveled to the sound of its cocking.

"I know he's talking shit, boys and girls, but you'll not be doing violence in my bar. And if'n you wanna teach'em a lesson you'll do outside it and fair like, o'not at'll."

Three young faces held expressions of thunder.

"What do you care?" Twiddle-Dumb postured.

"I don't. But if yas keen on defending Shepard's honor then don't be dishonor 'er by doing things unfairly."

John looked at the three hooligans then back to the barman. "She some kind of hero to you too?"

"She is, but not 'cuz she did anything for me or mine. She's a bleeding hero to us all. Upon my oath I ain't a military man, but for 'er... yeah. Is why put 'er poster in a gold frame an'all. Hell, my wee girls wanna be 'er when they grow up. They even got 'er action figures and a model of the _Normandy_."

The barman, presumably Joe, stared at John Sheppard the way a junkyard dog stares down a vandal. "Now I aint say'n you haff'ta like 'er, Bub, but lot o'folks around here look up to 'er. Word-tell is er' pop comes from these parts, so you best keep your opinions to yourself Mister. And I gives ya this friendly warn'en just the once, if you spout shit like that again, you ain't welcome in me pub."

"Yeah, well the drinks are watered down anyway." John stood up and started for the door.

Twiddle-Dumb blocked his way, his face as red as the thatch of hair on top of his head. "What's your beef with her anyway old man?"

The she-hulk looked him up and down, a nasty sneer on her face, "I bet he's one of those Cerberus assholes."

"The same frackers that tried to kill her wife? They got her kid." Twiddle-Dumber backed up his cronies. "It's payback time."

"I'm not Cerberus," John Sheppard said with a voice of iron. Strong enough for the three to back down on their heated, drink filled accusations. It was a voice they heard before, a voice of a commanding officer.

The former major turned back to Joe the barman. "You said your daughters look up to her?" He stabbed a finger towards the gilded framed poster. "I'd nip that in the bud quick before you lose them. Before they do what these jarheads did and join up become they want to be god-damn heroes.

"You think her 'pop' is proud of her? You think her father wanted a hero?" He shook his head. "He probably just wanted a normal kid when he got saddled with one. Being proud of a daughter for being a hero gets you nothing but a dead daughter." He pointed to the poster once more. "Shepard... is going to end up like all heroes: Dead. That's what happens to heroes. If she stayed a marine... a simple soldier, she might have lived to be an old woman. Serve the fleet like her mother, the rear admiral. Heroes don't get old, boys and girls. Maybe that asari's child wouldn't have been killed if Shepard hadn't marched off and become a goddamned HERO!" Saying his bit John Sheppard stormed out of the pub door and into the rain.

_I'm sorry… I'm not normal. One day I'll make it up to you, Dad. One day you'll be proud of me. Right now I'm just me, sir. I don't know how to be anything else._

_Yeah Kid, you don't know how to be anything else, do you? Be the god-damned big hero and end up dead. Your mother and your father can bury you. If I was any kind of sensible I'd wash my hands of the Shepard women and be done with it._ He puffed out a deep breath of air. Sometimes the former Alliance engineer wasn't a smart man.

The divorce should have happened years ago. It should have happened when The Kid was seven. He and Hannah both should have packed it in and admitted that the farce had gone on long enough. They should have given each other their freedom, gone back to being the friends they started out as. But they danced the dance and pretended they weren't breaking regs and a dozen other things. During the whole marriage John felt adrift. He still didn't have a course heading, only this time he didn't care. Maybe he'd go someplace way off the grid, someplace where there were no radios or vids of any kind, a place where he didn't have to hear about The Kid dying on one of her damnable fool hero missions fucking Hackett and now the Council were always sending her on.

As the thought might happen, the door to Joe's pub slammed open and the three hulks exited.

"So this is how's going to be?" John Sheppard squared his shoulders and eyed the trio in equal disdain. "Fine. Which one of you assholes want to dance first?" He spat on the gravel parking lot and put up his fists like a champion boxer.

"You really that stupid?" Twiddle-Dumber scoffed. "Or just that drunk?"

"Does it matter?" John took a lunging swing at the blonde who easily sidestepped the fist and shoved John to the ground, causing him to land on his knees.

"Leave him Markus, look at him, he's noting but a tired old drunk," Twiddle-Dumb said, grabbing the other male by the arm. "He's not worth the hassle. Besides, as soon you hit him in the gut, he'll puke."

"You backing down, you yellow-bellied sissy boys! Don't have the kahoonas to back up your fucking champion? What about you Twiddle-Dee you got a set of stones on you? You sure as hell look the part." John rose to his feet and made another attempt at his attack.

"Looks to me he wants suicide by marine," Twiddle-Dee said. For a moment it looked as if she were going to pop the retired major in the mouth. "Go home old man. You're not worth the trouble. Go sleep it off."

"Frack the lot of you!" John climbed to his feet, whipped the spittle from his mouth and dirt that had collected upon his three day old unshaven chin. "I don't need your fracking pity! And I don't need no goddamn hero for a daughter!"

But the trio had already gone back inside the pub, ignoring the former naval officer and his insults.

Teetering on drunken feet he slid down next to a parked air-car and pressed his back against it. His whole body started to ache as the pent up tension in his muscles spewed out like vomit. "I don't want a dead hero Kid. I'm fine with just Sam."

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

The Azure Hotel on Illium was a place of decadence that catered to a particular clientele. It was not a cheap place if one wanted to become a permanent resident of the hotel as there was a substantial rental contract. On the plus side however, it was a fixed rate.

The penthouse suites were all uniformly decorated with aquatic art-deco motif favored in general by the majority of the asari people. Art deco was not only popular in their homes and places of business, it was also the preferred style within the interiors of their ships; both privately owned pleasure barges and militaristic fleets.

Matriarch Aethyta never bothered to alter the standard décor of her apartment as it served its purpose well enough. In fact, she added very few personal touches to the rooms. The only thing of any deep personal meaning was her portrait of her daughters. One in particular always held her attention more than the others, her youngest; the one she sired along with Sha'ira. Often times, in vain, Aethyta tried not to dwell on the Consort's part in the conception of her daughter. Did it matter now? Neither of them played a significant part in the maiden's life. If she could, Aethyta would take pains to alter that relationship, but that was not within her power to change. Nor was it in the power of the Consort's, may the Progenitor take her old bones.

The self-exiled Matriarch now sat at her dinner table barren of rich foods or simple fares, it held only the portrait of Liara and a decanter of single malt whiskey from Scotland, a country on the human homeworld. A constant connoisseur of whiskeys, bourbons and bandies from all across the galaxy, Aethyta held a certain appreciation for the human made variety. They had a particular talent for the brewing and distilling of it.

Aethyta loved the way it burned down her throat as she drank it. If she drank it quickly enough, it brought tears to her eyes and she could pretend they came from the booze and not the sorrow she possessed her heart when she gazed at the face of her daughter.

There was a sudden knock at the door that shot through Aethyta like a sudden plunge into freezing waves of ocean water. There was a deep temptation to ignore the pounding, but her curiosity of who would come calling at this hour got the better of her. It must be an errand of some import. There was a sudden, inexplicable icicle of dread that penetrated the ageing asari's heart as her imagination spread virally at the notion that something had happened to her Little Wing.

Rushing to the door, she tore it open only to find, not a messenger of Liara's downfall, but another courier of ill-tidings.

"Oh isn't this just grand?"

"You are spare in your salutations as always," Consort Sha'ira said diplomatically as she stood at the threshold of her former lover's home. "Are you going to invite me in or are we going to converse at your door?"

"Considering you came all the way to Illium, I can assume it isn't for booze, _azure_ or anything else just this side of a Justicar's wrath. Should I see your presences as some kind of portent?" Aethyta blithely assaulted the renowned matriarch standing before her.

Even still, she parted the doorway allowing the other passage.

"Bluntly spoken as always, I see. How very charming." Sha'ira responded in her more genteel tone.

"Charm in this place doesn't get you anywhere near _azure_ or a good ass. What do you want? Looking to branch out? I wouldn't. Illium has its own consorts and there are no better burlesques to be found even on the homeworld. We don't need you."

"You know very well that only acolytes travel, not a Mistress. And that is not why I have chosen to come here, Aethyta."

"Oh damn, there goes my chances for a booty call. Again; what the hell do you want? Nezzy's dead. We don't have any more connection." Without looking behind her to see that her guest was settled, the bartender went to the liquor cabinet and took out a fresh bottle of bourbon and two glasses, which she placed four cubes of ice in each.

"Liara," Sha'ira offered in a voice as sharp as a dagger point.

Perhaps that icicle of fear had yet to melt. Mastering her expressions was an art Aethyta never mastered, she had never cared to.

"_My_ girl. Not yours. When are you going to get that though that skull of yours Consort? You were just the bit on the side for both of us. Nezzy was _my_ bondmate; we just used you as a play thing, a decedent dessert. And hell, I'll give you this; you were fun. Who doesn't like a good three-way tumble now and then?"

Contrariwise, the Consort was long schooled in controlling her emotions, and gave no outward display of the pure outrage she had for this 'bartender.' "Must you be so crass?"

"Blame my krogan father. I inherited a bit of his mouth," Aethyta said. She put the glass of alcohol in front of the other matriarch and took a deep sip of her own.

"Clearly."

"Yeah well, crass or not, my girl is one forth krogan, not an ounce of her _Consort_."

"Oh, I don't know about that. Have you seen her walk? Dance? She moves with in-born grace—twice over. That did not come from you, that is pure Benezia and I."

"Bah. Delude yourself if you want, I know my girl." The glass was drained and refilled.

"Truly? I do not recall seeing you at the funeral or the wedding. Nor do I recall you admitting your connection to Benezia to our child." Her tumbler was now half drained.

"Just because you did not see me, does not mean I was not there." Aethyta crossed her arms over her chest. "I had to know what sort of woman this Shepard was, to get into my girl's heart like she did."

"And?" The Consort was more than a little intrigued what her former partner in the Triad thought of their bond-daughter.

"Before... she was good enough. Now... not so much. For all her power, her heroics, she did nothing to stop the assassins going after Little Wing. And it certainly didn't stop her from losing my grandchild. It's fair to say Shepard has brought more danger into Little Wing's life and has given very little protection."

"Had Shepard been there, you can rest assured it would have played out differently." Sha'ira defended the human maiden. "But she was fulfilling obligations as a Spectre and was with the Council when it happened. Obviously the mercenaries possessed this information and struck precisely when Shepard was otherwise occupied. There isn't a day that passes that Shepard does not feel the guilt of abandoning Liara to the machinations of an intolerable man. I know what guilt Shepard feels to the marrow of her soul. I know what it is to-"

"Don't you dare Shay! Don't you dare. If it wasn't for _you,_ Nezzy would never have been in that damned transport and she would never have gone missing for an entire year. Had she been with her commando escort like she should have been, the pirates would never have targeted that dinky little ship. But you didn't even have them along. Shepard is to blame for what happened to Little Wing and the babe, and you are to blame for what happened to my bondmate and daughter," Aethyta's snarled.

Sha'ira's waxing frustration with her once lover grew so that even her renowned patience was faltering, but that was Aethyta's greatest talent. She possessed an unfathomable capacity to vex anyone who crossed verbal swords with her. The Matriarchy had cast the harsh spoken asari out centuries ago. Her views and ideas had sown more discord than all the harmony Benezia had harvested. Was it any wonder their marriage started to wither?

Having a baby wasn't going to fix that. Benezia having Liara wasn't about repairing a failing marriage, it had been about a woman desperately wanting a daughter. It was about a woman fearful that she had waited too long.

Aethyta proposed a solution that had nothing to do with medicine but with ancient scriptures: a Trinity may bring forth what two could not in the winter of life. Aethyta was never one for art or philosophy, but Nezzy was. She was a goddess-forsaken priestess after all. And it wasn't like they hadn't toyed with the Consort before, she _was_ fun. Of course, that happened when the three were all still in their more wild maidens years.

Goddess that was a long time ago.

"I did not come in person to argue with you Aethyta, but to enlist your aid. There is a storm brewing and Little Wing is caught right up in the middle of it. Had it not been for Shepard, that storm would have hit sooner and we would not be here in your apartment feuding over what is past."

"Shepard's Reapers?" Aethyta snorted contempt. "You came all this way to tell me they are they're real?"

"No." Sha'ira shook her head. "I suspect you already know that they are, because Liara does. And that is all the proof you need."

"And what makes you so sure they are real? Have a little meld with Shepard?"

"No. It was in fact Tevos that did so."

"HA!" Aethyta took another great swig of the whiskey she was drinking and then poured herself a third jigger. "Tevos lead the choir that laughed the blue off my ass when I told the Matriarchy we needed to build our own mass relays. Way I hear it, your new girlfriend laughed the tan off Shepard's ass as well when she told the Council about the Reapers."

"I would not have phrased it so indelicately. And for the record, Tevos has never been my 'girlfriend'. We enjoy each other's company. That is all." The Consort chastised the other asari.

"Right. Last time I spoke to Liara, she said Tevos and a couple other matriarchs melded with Shepard so the kid could go on the Great Hunt. They saw the ship Sovereign in the Spectre's mind, and decided that, while it was true for Shepard, they weren't going to budge on the issue. Said Sovereign was a one-of-kind of geth invention. Little Wing said the Council only believed Shepard believed those things were real. What is true in a mind isn't necessarily real. Seems Shepard resented that decree as much I did when I told them what our maidens should be doing.

"I'm here on Illium serving drinks, and Liara's bondmate is crusading against Cerberus. Maybe we're both better off."

Sha'ira nodded solemnly. She went to the mini-bar to retrieve a new bottle, this one was a human brew from someplace called Tennessee. After she refilled her own snifter with the dark liquor, she set the bottle not where she found it, but in the center isle in the kitchen that she and her former lover leaned against. The ice cubes clinked against glass as the liquid poured over their frozen surfaces.

"I would have thought that as well. Except that Shepard is a young woman of deep conviction." The Consort brought the glass under her nose, inhaling the rich aroma before sipping the heady mixture. She closed her eyes, enjoying the burn as it slipped past her throat into her belly, warming her through. "I do not simply believe the phantoms of the Prothean beacons are what Shepard is convinced are real. I know it is more than that, as does Tevos."

"Tell me, why did that old crone have a sudden change of heart? Tevos isn't the type to suddenly believe in words of a desperate crusader. Something prompted her; I'm betting it wasn't you or your trite 'gift of words'."

"No it wasn't me. The change came from another, one who has a far deeper connection to our Councilor."

"How in the name of the Goddess did _she _get involved?" Aethyta all but slammed her snifter on the countertop that separated her from the Consort. Small droplets of whiskey plopped like contraindicated rainwater all about its surface, settling into miniature puddles.

"Shepard went to Aria. Begged her to listen to her warnings. Aria heard her out and acted accordingly."

"Oh please, sell that rot to the vorcha, sister. I'm not buying." The bartender snatched the long-necked bottle of the liquor and poured an indiscriminate amount back into the near empty glass.

Sha'ira watched the ice settle in her own glass before she found the words. "Aria took the information from the Spectre's mind. She was deliberately not gentle and she went in very deep. Tore the information out so viciously, that had there been any sense of doubt in Shepard's mind, or even if she were indoctrinated by Reaper or Prothean tech, it would have surfaced. It didn't. The Reapers are very real."

"Oh fuck me," Aethyta gasped.

"Indeed."

"Tevos knows. Presumably she has the Matriarchy and High command doing something about it? What do you want me to do Shay? I have no pull with the home world. Not anymore."

"But you do here, Aethyta. Help our people here. If other worlds see Illium doing something to ready themselves against this threat, they will do so as well. Apparently Aria is prepping Omega. I do not know how, but you must convince the Illium Chamber of Congress to act, if only to build deep subterranean shelters. Rest assured the Pirate Queen, while not altruistic, will not easily give-up her dominion."

By this time Aethyta poured herself another glass of whiskey. "Has all of this something to do with what is happening to the human colonies?"

"I think it does, yes." Sha'ira admitted. "Though I do not know how the Collectors fit in with the Reapers. Only that they do, and Shepard is growing desperate. As with the Reapers, few have taken her words on the Collectors on faith. However peripherally, we must give our bond-daughter's mate aid Aethyta. If not for her sake then for the sake of the daughter we share with Nezzy."

The Illium resident stared at the other asari, the shock on her face evidently clear. "You must be truly worried, you always hated that nickname."

Sha'ira remained silent. Her only action was to drain what remained within her brandy snifter. It was point enough.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

In the darkest recesses of space lay two well concealed bases of operation controlled by two extremely cautious, perhaps even paranoid (though not undeservedly so), males. One was a massive space station that orbited a red, giant-class M star. Appropriately, the station was named appropriately by its master - the overlord of Cerberus - as Coronus station. Named so after the Lord of the Titans in Greek mythology.

The other stronghold was a vast dreadnought that traveled through the volatile atmosphere of the planet Hagalaz, where the oceans boiled during the day and froze instantly at night. The intense heat on one side of the planet, and the extreme cold on the other, made for a creation of violent storm cells wherever the sun rose or set. The ship followed just in the wake of the sunset to conceal itself within the raging storm. She carried no name, the old girl was the home of the Shadow Broker.

Neither one was willing to risk their safety, or the amenities afforded to them by their deliberate seclusion, by arbitrarily carrying out the meeting in person. The yahg went one step further; concealing his identity with a featureless white silhouetted holographic avatar. Only a handful of his troops had ever seen him face to face, and they never left the ship. Both men found it difficult to contend with each other. Such meetings were generally handled through intermediaries. A drell male named Feron served for the Shadow Broker and Lawson served as such for the Illusive Man, but that was out of the question now.

Sometimes you had to take the risk and do things in person.

*I understand the stage is set. You needn't linger in the dark, this meeting has been a long time coming..._ Jack Harper_.*

The horror-stricken look on the Illusive Man's face was priceless. A fleeting moment, like the smelling of burning hair a stroke victim suffers just before the collapse. For the first time in three decades, the Illusive Man had been rendered speechless. Stunned mystification caused his eyes to bulge.

Before the Broker took full advantage of the dumbfounded leader of Cerberus, the man scolded himself on his lack of self-control. He could not afford another slip. The Shanxi vet had promised himself ages ago that the name no longer held any true meaning to him. Jack Harper died soon after the reclaiming of Shanxi.

The name was a stranger to the tongue and to the ears. Ignorantly, The Illusive Man believed the power its hearing once held had all but diminished. He had taken great pains to 'assassinate' Jack Harper; The Illusive Man meant to keep it this way. After losing Eva and Ben to the brothers Arterius, Jack Harper knew there had to be something out there to protect humanity against all galactic threats. Just as Cerberus was ordered to guard the gates of hell, so must he. But the name Jack Harper could not do this. That life had to end so that humanity could have its guardian angel; The Illusive Man was born and so was the manifesto.

"A bit of an ironic statement considering who you are," The Illusive Man responded tersely. "I am not interested in engaging in needless banter with you Shadow Broker. You know why I've contacted you."

And yet the Shadow Broker persisted in bating away his quarry. *Yes Mr. Harper. You thought to introduce your pawn into the game and now she has been swept from the board.*

"I wouldn't count her out just yet. Miss Lawson's loyalty is unquestionable. She knows what is at stake and what is needed to be done. She's tough and committed, she won't crack for Shepard. She will see it through, to the very end."

*It might have been that way once. No longer. You held the keys to Lawson's little sister's freedom from the tyranny of one Dr. Henry Lawson. Since Shepard's intervention, I believe you no longer posses that 'ace in the hole.' Now Lawson is in the midst of Shepard's power and is being influenced by the Spectre's altruism and ardent belief that your people are more than evil. Miranda Lawson will be turned against the doctrine of Cerberus and she will betray you. It is only a matter of when.*

The cigarette burned brightly as The Illusive Man took a long pull from its filter. "Shepard's leadership skills are incontestable yes, but she is also desperate. Desperate enough to gamble on information Lawson gives her and act upon it. My own pawn is not done with the board yet. Shepard will bend to our ways if only by necessity."

*It is amusing you actually believe that. No doubt your people within the Citadel government know as much as my own have learned. The Council has pulled all turian and salarian military personal, as well as Shepard's entire science team, from her command. Presumably this is because of her crusade against your organization and the Collectors which have forced her to travel the Terminus Systems. Is this what you are counting on Mr. Harper? Is that the reason you called me in person?*

"Hardily. My own network of informants has uncovered something rather interesting about your interactions with the Collectors. You've been tracing their movements for some time. More to the point, the people I've planted in your network of agents tell me you intend to sell Shepard to the Collectors. I can't have that."

*You're supposed to be a business man, Mr. Harper. You should understand when I say their offer was too good to pass up. They do not seem to care if she is alive or dead.*

"Is that why you turned Udina's mob of mercenaries? You want them to switch targets. Your people harvested the dead of the _Normandy_ SR1, did you mean to pass one of their corpses off to the Collectors as Shepard? All they would have needed was a trace of her DNA to know that those bodies were not her."

*True, but that is not the reason those bodies were taken. They were a resource and this is nothing but business. Frankly I have nothing against Shepard, her bondmate or any of her friends or crew.*

"Shepard is my investment. I cannot allow you to tamper with her. She needs to stay her course. You should find new business partners Shadow Broker. I will stop your minions from impeding her task. My people are more than a match for yours. Cerberus will save humanity from the collectors, from the Reapers. The Reapers are a threat to all organics, even you."

The computerized voice of the Shadow Broker let out a laugh. *Still so arrogant! All this time you've spent devising some brilliant plan, yet you know nothing! You have read the signs but missed their meaning. You think you are the hope of all organics? The savior of all organics against the machines? Your messianic delusions have blinded you to the human Spectre's true nature. You have no idea what you have unleashed.*

"And you do?" The rage was back in The Illusive Mans' throat.

"Yes I do. Pushing Shepard to confront the Collectors, to stop them, will became the hallmark of your downfall; yours and everyone else. She must not realize her fate. It will be better for all if she were turned over to the Collectors, believe me."

"You presume too much. The only reason the Collectors want Shepard out of the picture is because they fear her. The Reapers fear her. She is an anomaly, which terrifies you as well."

*There was a time you might have listened to wise council when it was offered. Now your vanity has made you witless. You will have to learn the truth for yourself. Shepard may yet teach you a little humility... before she kills you. I'd pay real money just to see that.*

"This conversation is over," The Illusive Man snarled just before he cut communications.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME


	7. The Lazarus Base

_Chapter 7: The Lazarus Base_

_Oh this place the creature liked. It had been here before but it had been expelled. The Spectre who was afraid of the dark, the dark not within not from without, was a strong one. Her mind was a ghostly-wavering city—no a space station, a great battleship. _

_When the creature first came to the mind it expected resistance, there was always resistance and it always overcame it. It had with the Protheans, The Old Growth; it had wormed into their beings. It was the essence of the Cipher. But The Spectre welcomed it only to arrest it and imprison it. There had been no parole. _

_Trying to conform The Spectre's mind to its way of thinking, to bend it to its will, had not worked. There was some disquiet to that, but there was always a way. If the Game could not be won one way then victory must be taken another way. The Spectre had devised the very path to take. Change the rules. _

_The countenance of its features contorted to a face this one loathed. Ambassador Donnel Udina. It changed the comfort of the ship, from home to that of a cold and impersonal office. Here it would take the battle_ _and the Spectre's strength._

"_Your tiresome refrain 'the Reapers are coming' grows wearisome. It makes you sound like a character in a child story clucking about the sky falling down. You've lost your objectivity and reason. There is no proof the Reapers are coming. Even if Saren's flagship was one of them, it was awoken by a fluke. The others are dormant and locked behind Dark Space with no way here now that the Citadel is cut off from them__,__" Ambassador Udina haughtily challenged. _

"_They are real and they will destroy us all if we do not stand united. I will continue to warn, continue to make a stand, to make this 'tiresome refrain.' To ignore the obvious is to become like lemmings running to your doom!' the Spectre faced her accuser with steadfast resolve. _

"_Face the truth Spectre." Her appellant was Councilor Sparatus and he stood beside Udina. "Those beacons scrambled your mind and the influence of the Protheans has addled your judgment. That ship bore an uncanny resemblance to geth bayships. Saren used what he gleaned from the beacons to influence the geth. He became their __prophet__ because he knew how to exploit the weakness, hopes and minds of others."_

"_Sovereign might even have been an AI rather than a VI, but that doesn't mean it was a creature from fifty millennia ago. And if we are to believe the words of that woman of yours, the Reapers are far older. Do you know how ludicrous this sounds?"_

"_Ludicrous? You dare accuse me of such? You have eyes to see but you are blind. Ears to hear but you do not listen. You have voices that should shout out and warn but you make yourselves mute!" Shepard became desperate, "You're like the three monkeys: Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil. But the evil will come, they will blacken the skies of every world and lay it to ruin. Unless we prepare!" _

"_Your reason has left you, even as it has left Saren. You are to be pitied really; it isn't your fault that the beacons scrambled your mind. Cerberus, not you, will be the __savior__ of humanity, and we in turn will save the galaxy as it should have been saved when you had the choice. Instead you chose to save the Council, and set that dog of war upon the seat that rightly belonged to me as its human representative!" The Illusive Man's words slithered across his lips like poison. _

Having Cipher induced nightmares and memories, it turned out, felt an awful lot like dread. On that bizarre level where the Spectre spent more time than was strictly healthy these days, that was comforting. She'd had lots of practice dealing with dread.

She felt gentle azure hands press against the base of her spine. "What's the matter? Cannot sleep?" Liara's soft voice had the effect of a warm blanket on a cold winter's night.

"Nightmares," Sam held her head in her hands, her tone held notes of exhaustion. "It had a different flavor than the others. But familiar."

"Was it the one you call the Waking Dark?" the young archaeologist caught a handful of questions amongst the throng. "Did you arrest it like before?"

"Didn't figure out what it was until it was over." Sam looked over her shoulder to her naked wife lying comfortably in the nest of duvet. "Maybe _they're_ right; maybe I really am going mad." She referred to the Council, more specifically to Sparatus' comment about her being mentally unstable.

"That is not your real fear," there was a knowing tone in the other woman's voice.

The raven locks shook. No, that wasn't her real fear. It didn't even rate amongst the top ten concerns. Being mad barely made the top hundred list. Hell, half her ideas wouldn't work if there wasn't a little craziness in the old noggin.

The hand that rested against her back slid up to her shoulder and pulled her gently back down to their bed. The Spectre complied with the gentle guidance; she lay her head down on her love's breast and melted when her Angel Eyes stroked her hair.

"Indoctrination?" Liara kissed the caramel skinned forehead. "Through all our Joinings, through the Bond, I would have felt it, I would know."

"But the Bond connects us so fully would you truly know? What if it contaminated you too?"

"You only spoke to Sovereign's avatar," Liara tried to reassure her bondmate. "Not to the thing itself."

But Samantha wouldn't be placated. "What if that was enough to start the process? Hell, maybe Sparatus' accusations _are_ right and it's the Prothean's tech that hit me?" This time she voiced her fear. "The damned things gave me CS, Li. What if they really screwed with me? It started with Eden Prime. You wouldn't know any different, you didn't know me before that thing hit me."

"But I knew you after."

"You didn't touch my mind until after I gained the Cipher, by then I was already screwed up. Remember how our first meld drained you." Sam tilted her head up so she could see Liara's face. "How many melds left you like that?"

"None."

"See." Sam put a hand on the fingers stroking her to stop them, she propped herself up on her elbow.

"No, I do not. Before you I have only I melded with my mother and one other, Samantha. Those were nurturing melds between mother and daughter. Mother…" Liara's eyes blinked several times with the sudden burning of tears. Oh how she missed her mother. She even missed the arguments and the lasting twenty-five year silence because, at the end of the day, Liara knew her mother was still there. Now…now the Matriarch of the T'Soni bloodline had rejoined the Great Flow of Life, her body returned to Mother Ocean and her soul the Great Void.

Soft ruby lips touched lilac, pulling the asari back from the moment of remorse. "Mother always initiated the melds. An asari mother is her daughter's first teacher; her mind is always the first to touch her daughter's. It begins in the womb."

"And what about the other?"

"Shiala, my mentor when I was a youngling and ever a friend of the family. You, my love, were the first non-asari I melded with. It left me weary because your mind did not have the same discipline as an asari mind. And the images…" Liara sat up and took Samantha's face between her hands. "You have nothing to worry about."

The tumultuous tremor in the bond told another story.

"What if I'm a sleeper agent? We just don't know it, then the Reapers throw some kind of switch, and **bam**, I become the next Saren! I become this 'Waking Dark.'" Sam pulled her bondmate's hands away from her face and stood up and away from the bed.

Cerulean light from the fish tank gave an unearthly glow to her skin as she stood by it. "I have to keep it contained, seal it away." Sam fixed her gaze upon the fish swimming mindlessly to and fro, feeling a little like the aquatic pets as she swam through nightmare-to-nightmare. "Hell, we've been hearing about different effects surrounding how indoctrination works on various different levels for different people," she sighed heavily. "Some hear whispers," she tapped her ear then her head, "some see visions, some just feel urges to do stuff, or follow the 'ideas' that appear in their minds and slowly devour their willpower, as it did with your mother and Shiala and even Rana Thanoptis."

The last name spoken made the Spectre wince. Back on Virmire, Shepard's gut had told her to stop the scientist permanently, and so she had. If Matriarch Benezia couldn't break away fully from indoctrination and Shiala's mental conditioning was converted, what hope was there for the maiden? And so, almost reluctantly, Shepard had ended the asari scientist's life. Now it was far too late for doubt and second-guessing herself, such a thing a Commander, a Spectre, could ill afford.

"And think about it, some of my ideas are really out there." Sam threw her hands into the air to exaggerate her point. "People have seen visions, Liara, what are my nightmares if not something…from the Reapers or the Protheans? I even call them visions."

"Samantha…"

"Either there is something there," she tapped her forehead at the last word, "maybe something or _someone_ left over from the Cipher or the Vinculum or both! Or I've gone completely loopy because of the touch of CS. Chakwas can't even test for indoctrination because of the physiological damage left behind from the CS. It'll mess up any clean readings on my neuro-pathways she can get. On top of that, I already have odd synaptic patterns as it is because of the Prothean tech. It's either one of those two or I'm schizophrenic, take your pick; none of them seem all that great."

"You're not schizophrenic, of this I know for certain, _Melethril._ The mind of one who suffers such mental illness is so chaotic it is more than difficult to establish a mental link. Even during the moments of full lucidity it is a challenge."

"Like the ardat-yakshi.?" Sam asked to her reflection as she pressed her hand to the glass of the aquarium.

'_No mind can touch theirs'_ Liara whispered mordantly through the bound as softly as if she were in a mausoleum '_and live_.'

For a moment a long silence befell the two, there were sounds of bed cloths being tossed aside, a body moving, the only sight was a reflection in the glass. '_Protheans touched your mind, scarred it as the Husk-Saren did to your body. You still feel the pain of his attack; I think you will for a long time, my love. You will feel the pain of the Prothean's attack on your mind. A part of me is guilty for what happened.'_

"How can you say that?" Sam met Liara's gaze in their reflections.

"I was so caught up in uncovering the history of the Protheans; in unveiling their secrets, their religion, their politics, their lives, that I blinded myself to everything else. Even you. If they had anything, anything at all we could use against Reapers, I wanted to know it. I had the audacity to think I could be the one to give you something, anything. Hope. I was so utterly convinced of it.

"When the idea of using the Vinculum was offered I…I pushed you into it, Samantha. You know that. Please do not deny it. My desires were so deep, how could you do anything else but follow the convictions? I knew the Vinculum would work for you, it had to. You had the Cipher." Liara pressed her naked body close to her bondmate's. The skin-to-skin contact pooled their warmth together as well as their souls. '_Vigil took advantage of my weakness and your connection. Samantha you are not indoctrinated, you are a victim of great mental abuse, a survivor of CS. It left its mark on you.'_ Liara held on tightly, fearing Samantha was but a wisp of thought and dream. '_Do not let it destroy you, Melethril.' _

Emotions could be foolish and fickle things, debilitating if allowed. It wasn't going to be allowed, N7-Spectre Sam could ill afford to be brought low, not now. The psychological malfeasance of her dreams, of their crippling nature, had to be stripped down to their barest elements to where they became benign.

"My mother used to tell me to 'heed no nightly noises, Little Wing, dark dreams are simply thus and have no power to harm you.' Those words gave me great comfort."

"Mom told me something similar. Told me everything was going to be alright. Bad dreams can't touch me in real life; they were only jumbled up thoughts left over from things that were bothering me. Her solution was simple: solving the things bothering me means no bad dreams."

"You believed her." Liara smiled against the bare shoulder her face was pressed against.

Sam shook her head. "It wasn't real life I was worried about, the dream realm haunted me, kept me awake when all I wanted to do was sleep. When she said stuff like that I knew everything wasn't going to be okay. It was just something adults say to placate kids. I knew it even when I was one."

"You had terrible nightmares as a child?"

The Spectre shrugged, "Probably no more than any other kid. No, my issues were the migraines because of the biotics. My childhood night terrors came from that."

Liara nodded, recalling the visions they had seen being transmitted via the holographic interface of the Prothean Vinculum. Shepard was one of the first L3s. She recalled that Samantha hadn't been implanted until much later than what was typical for a human. The asari placed a warm kiss on her bondmate's neck.

"Samantha, I will not allow you to become lost in your nightmares," Liara vowed. "I will not allow you to become lost."

"You're going to chase the boogie-man away for me?" quipped the Spectre.

"All the way back to dark space if I must, _Melethril_." Liara kissed Samantha hard. "As my sire might say: 'No one messes with my girl.'"

This at least got a smile, however faint, from Sam. "That must be from Aethyta. I can't imagine Sha'ira ever saying something like that."

Liara nodded and pressed her body even closer to her bondmate. The young asari maiden didn't want to admit how worried she was concerning the indoctrination theory. Samantha had gained the Cipher from Shiala who had been indoctrinated not only by Sovereign, but had been in thrall to the Thorian. What if…what if something else had also transferred during the knowledge bond? Traces of indoctrination from both aliens could have very likely been passed along, like a virus. Those traces in combination with the gestalt and interfacing with Prothean tech might have been the true cause of Samantha's brush with Cyan Syndrome.

"We will find a way to still these nightmares, Samantha," Liara said. "Even if Dr. Chakwas cannot scan for indoctrination markers, Dr. T'Shyn can help. She's on board for that very reason; to study our link and the changes in us. Maybe if you meld with her she can touch the damaged areas - _if_ there are any."

Sam paused to consider this. Dr. Kiang T'Shyn had been the one to treat her Cyan Syndrome and install the new L5x implant. While she was still on board why not utilize her talents?

"And there is also Dr. Solus," Liara continued. "I know he wrote dissertations and several journals on the effects of mind control and Reaper indoctrination."

"Bringing him into the consultation couldn't hurt," Sam agreed.

Hell, he might even be able to develop a new scanning device that would work on her rather unique brain chemistry. Of course, if he was going to do that then he might as well get on with more practical sciences, like finding that bloody butterfly whose flapping wings cause all those storms the galaxy had been having lately and getting it to stop.

Shepard pushed away thoughts of her own predicament in favor of another issue just as troubling and just was weighty: how to get Miranda Lawson to agree to surrender the ship Cerberus had built. Had the Council Spectre been of a more renegade mind like Saren, the answer was blatantly obvious: use Oriana. But this was not an option the former Alliance officer wanted to even entertain let alone implement. She had used the young girl quite enough already, doing so again was abhorrent. There were, after all, limits to how far into the shadows Shepard was willing to step.

At the very least, contemplating how to get Lawson's co-operation was a welcome distraction over her inner struggle about the 'Waking Dark.' Let this thing gorge itself on hyperbole, Spectre Sam blithely groused as she began her morning rituals.

Who we are has always been defined by what we do. It was a galactic truth. What had to be done now was to secure a very valuable resource from a secret Cerberus base. That was the easy part. The hard one was to convince Lawson to give it up.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

"We need to talk," Shepard said, walking into the brig. "I need information." There was no card table or chair or MRE meals that generally preceded the interrogations. "You will divulge all I need," she was blunt and went directly to the point. She was there by the dreadful algebra of necessity, which has no mercy, and when necessity presses in extremis, that's when a Spectre becomes the most dangerous.

"If I were in a mood to divulgeatory mood, what then am I to be divulging?" Lawson asked, feeling brave enough to be a little glib with the Commander.

"The location of the ship you first tempted me with." Shepard stood rigid. "And you're not going to say you can't do that, Operative Lawson." Her mind spun so quickly Lawson should have heard the gears turning.

The playful mood seeped directly out of the Cerberus agent as a ship expelling its ballast; a shiver ran through Lawson's spine. There was only one other that conveyed such power of inner conviction. Almost like a lightning rod transmitting a mighty burst of electricity, there was an undeniable power around Commander Shepard, just like the power that orbited The Illusive Man.

"I mean to go deep into the Terminus Systems, I am going to investigate the disappearances of our colonies and I will stop the Collectors. I can't do that with a fleet from the Council or the Alliance, but I can use other resources. And let me make one thing perfectly and abundantly clear: I am _not_ joining Cerberus. I will not take orders from your TIMmy. And I will not comply with any Cerberus ordinances, regulations or the experiments your people so enjoy delivering to aliens in your butcher shops. As a matter of course, if and when I hear of such places, I mean to stop them. I will not allow Cerberus personnel on the ship with the exception of yourself. You will have no command authority; you are here as an observer and perhaps I'll allow you to serve as a consultant.

"You will, however, be free from the brig and given quarters once we've taken the vessel. If you contact TIMmy without my consent I will personally put a bullet in your head and space your corpse. Understand? If I deem it necessary you will join my squad when we engage the Collectors. Any data collected on the enemy or sites we investigate will not be passed to Cerberus without my prior authorization. Again, do you understand?"

"That data could be a…." if she said 'valuable assets to the Organization's science division,' it would be a monumental error of judgment.

The glare set in Shepard's blue eyes shouted: 'I said no. Don't even try me on this.'

"The Illusive Man will not agree to these terms, despite the fact I understand your ultimatums."

"Then it's a good thing we're not asking his permission," the Spectre remarked.

"You said fleet," Miranda said. "Do you mean to use both the _Normandy_ and the Cerberus SR-2 vessel to confront the Collectors?"

"I mean to use whatever is at my disposal, Lawson. The less you know the less you can tell your boss when you finally do rat us out." The Spectre's voice could have greased axles.

Miranda didn't even deny the accusation; there was no point to doing so. Hell, if their positions were reversed Shepard would do the same. She would find any way possible to get vital intel to the Alliance even if it cost her her life. Miranda didn't even have the audacity to ask what would occur if she didn't comply with the request. This mission to stop the Collectors was far more vital than any personal vendetta or agenda.

There was, however, a rather positive side note in Lawson's favor. All data would be correlated through the SR-2's main computer core and that core just happened to be a shackled AI. EDI, the phonetic pronunciation for **E**nhanced **D**efense **I**ntelligence, was a Quantum Blue Box type AI that functioned as the electronic warfare defense for the SR-2. Because of the potential danger of a rogue AI, it had been given behavioral blocks so that it could not interface with the ship's systems. EDI served as the Illusive Man's eyes and ears on the ship, monitoring the many listening devices on board and sending regular reports to him.

Once the ship was in Shepard's possession, The Illusive Man would no doubt restrict access to some of EDI's files and capabilities for security reasons. It wouldn't be near good enough for the Commander, but she would have to live with it if she wanted the SR-2. Even if pressed, EDI could only provide basic but sketchy information on Cerberus, about its task oriented structure into cells, but could not provide more details on the cells' operations. Even if Shepard ordered Tali to tear the AI core apart, EDI would shut down and blow its own hard drive just like a geth CPU. In essence it would commit cybernetic suicide.

It was the Cerberus philosophy programmed into all agents be they AIs or human - better death than the enemy gain vital knowledge of Cerberus operations. And if feasible, take out as many enemy insurgents as possible along the way.

Hopefully such actions would not be necessary if Miranda could portray a more positive spin on Cerberus' motivations concerning the Collectors. The Spectre and Cerberus were on the same side sharing the same objective... at least in this endeavor they were.

Perhaps this was the perfect window of opportunity that just landed in Miranda's lap. She had been ordered to recruit Shepard no matter what it took, if it took the ship then so be it. The Illusive Man could not argue the details nor motives taken to achieve that goal.

"Getting into the base will not be easy. The Illusive Man will have ordered my pass codes void. Any attempt to use them will raise an alarm."

"I'm counting on that. You see, I want TIMmy to know I'm stealing his ship and I want him to know why. If he is earnest in wanting to stop the Reapers and the Collectors then he won't raise too much of a fuss in how I go about using his resources." Shepard leaned into the bars of the cell so she could stare Lawson directly in the eyes - blue to blue. "Isn't that what he wants? Me to join the jolly gang of human elitists, oppress all other races and claim utter dominance of the galaxy for all humankind?" Shepard smiled balefully. "He can either fall in line or get the hell out of my way."

"I can hazard a guess that the same goes for me."

At first it might appear Shepard had nothing to add, and yet she drew in a breath. "I'm glad we found an understanding, Miranda. Question is, how will you answer?"

"There isn't much of a choice of an alternative if I want the Collectors stopped is there? I'll give you the nav-point to the Lazarus base."

"Lazarus base?" Shepard quirked an eyebrow at this particular tidbit of information, it opened a whole new door of uncomfortable questions. Lawson would be so reluctant to answer she'd probably make a mental retreat if pressed. Very deliberately the Spectre said "What is this, where you resurrect your dead?"

Miranda scratched the spot under her collarbone. As predicted the Cerberus agent was reluctant to comment further, even to deny the semi-accusation being issued. After a breath the disinclined woman said, "The _Normandy_ was resurrected."

Lawson waited for the inevitable fallout.

Shepard opened her mouth. Then Shepard closed her mouth, trapping the words: _Why am I not surprised you people violated even this? And how in the hell did TIMmy even get the plans for my ship?!_ She worked hard to fix her face into a stare of cold blankness and very deliberately the Commander hissed, "The coordinates."

Hesitating now would unravel the carefully knitted thin lines of trust that were beginning to be spun betwixt the two. Not hesitating however, didn't mean there wasn't some reluctance when the nav-point was given.

"You will be wanting details of the base next," the operative said, watching the stalwart Spectre looming before her.

"I might have said how very perceptive of you, but that would be redundant as that is the obvious step," Shepard said, here she smiled beneficently. "Must I also remind you that the less opposition we face going in the better off it will be for you. May I also remind you your little sister is still on board this ship, I'm sure you wish to keep her as safe as possible." There was a bit of surreptitious conviction to her voice.

Planting the discordant thought in Miranda's mind was purposely done and settled in the elder woman's mind like reinforced concrete. The Illusive Man's protégé wasn't entirely certain at this point that she hadn't been labeled traitor by the people she worked for and thus a free target. This meant that even if she actually managed to escape the ever watchful eyes of the asari guards, whole squads of marines who had no love for anyone with sworn allegiance to Cerberus and a very vengeful Prothean expert, with Oriana in tow, the alternative wasn't exactly safe. The irony was that her little sister was far safer in the custody of humanity's first Spectre than she was with Cerberus. Add to that fact that Oriana would never forgive Miranda for turning her over to the organization that (thanks to Shepard) the girl felt made Beelzebub seem like a soppy wet kindergarten teacher.

There was nothing for it; Lawson would have to comply with Shepard's request, it was a quantum inevitability. The Commander would never jeopardize the life of Oriana, but that didn't mean she'd stop Lawson from bringing harm to the girl and the Spectre wasn't afraid to broadcast that fact. Even subtly. 'Sabotage the mission and you will probably kill the girl. Up to you.'

The wages of sin was death but so was the salary of virtue, metaphorically speaking it all came down to who signed the paycheck. Bereft of alternative options, Lawson surrendered all she believed relevant of the base. It was quite a lot considering she was supposed to be the Lazarus Project Leader. She related all security measures, personnel that would present any sort of opposition and those that were less than opposition but were still an obstacle. The blueprint was a fairly basic one common of all other cookie-cutter space stations; after all, why reinvent the wheel when you could hijack the patent? The Lazarus base had an inordinately large med-bay, no need to divulge what was going on within. It wasn't relevant, Lawson inexplicably argued with herself. Shepard's only concern should be the ship: the SR-2, the shade of the true _Normandy_. Once Shepard saw what was truly going on at the Lazarus base, the SR-2 would be demoted to a tertiary thought if not lower.

There was a small part of the operative that gave a reluctant thought as to what would happen if Shepard decided that, after she had the SR-2, she was going to destroy the station. Maybe that was for the better. Let the project die in an explosion, let the secrets that were crafted there erupt in flames. The true object of the Lazarus Objective was, for better or worse, right at Miranda's fingertips. Yes. Yes it was for the best that the secrets that were crafted there die there. Maybe if they were gone they wouldn't hauntingly come back and bite someone in the ass like a great many Cerberus projects had a nasty habit of doing.

The small things, the small objectives, had a way of being done and slipping through the cracks and succeeding. Slipping a spy in here or there was easy. Collecting data without being seen took skill but wasn't overly complex. Assassinations real and character also easy, political sabotage and lampooning were also objectives that had a high success rate as well. But the larger projects-the more complex and clandestine, despite the best efforts of humanity's sharpest (and amenable) minds that swore allegiance to Cerberus, had alarming statistics of going horribly wrong. There weren't many that walked away when things went that way. The very odds of Lazarus turning sour were remarkably high.

Miranda wasn't good at playing_ with_ the odds, but on the other hand, she wasn't especially good at playing against them either. That was… begrudgingly, Shepard's specialty. The Spectre could play the long or short odds and win. It was very annoying because Shepard was very good at letting you know about it and she was surreptitiously coy about it as well. It was like breathing; it was just done. No one consciously thought about and thus, it wasn't a moment to moment concern or thought until you couldn't do it anymore and then it became an all consuming thought that made you forget everything else entirely.

For Shepard, beating the odds was breathing—end of story. Miranda wasn't good at odds but she was good with people, well... manipulating them that is. Or rather she was very good at manipulating events that orbited people. It was why she was put in charge of the Lazarus Project in the first place and why, underneath it all, she was expected by the Illusive Man to insure that the events that created the Caesar-card happened.

The greatest challenge facing Lawson now was, with no hand to bet upon, how could she put the Caesar-card into play? The raven haired woman had to reevaluate everything and that meant going against the odds…

She scratched at the spot beneath her collarbone.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

The holographic blueprint of the Lazarus base loomed before a gathering of _Normandy_'s flagship ground team, Captain Kirrahe and the ship's CAG, LT. Russan _Normandy's_ Captain of the Air Group. And, standing next to the Spectre with many eyes glaring at her, Miranda Lawson.

She said absolutely nothing, she didn't shy away, didn't shrink, but stood firm and steady and silent. Very silent.

"In order for this to succeed we need to strike in multiple-" Commander Shepard started, but was immediately interrupted by a petulant voice of protest.

"Why is _she_ here?" the question issued out of the mouth of Lt. Ashley Williams. "We can't trust her!"

Blue eyes narrowed as they pinpointed the younger woman with a sniper's precision. "I trust her information enough to go through with the plan. I trust it, _Lieutenant_, as much as I trust you to be the keeper of all three of your sisters," answered Shepard sharply.

Ash felt the words in her head like little cubes of ice, and on the very, very edge there had been judgment. She was wise enough to pull away, very far away from the topic as she realized just what hung in the balance for the Lawson woman. Whatever happened to the _Normandy_ inevitably happened to Oriana. There wasn't anyone within the _Normandy_ crew who would raise a hand against Oriana, but zealous Cerberus agents didn't know about this concession and would not hesitate to fire upon the warship given half a chance. If Lawson wanted her little sister to survive, it was, in few words, in her best interest to give very accurate information about the base, the personnel and the target in question, namely the SR-2.

There was a miniature stare down between Spectre and Lieutenant that lasted only a heartbeat and a half before the younger woman quickly looked away. It was a heartbeat too long and Ash knew there would be hell to pay later. The silence was the uncomfortable kind that hung about the air like great weight or a massive saber-toothed beast that was starving and was only waiting for the right moment to pounce. Williams berated herself, she knew better than to question her superior officer in front of others.

The young marine prided herself on the fact she was military, it was in her blood and she told everyone this. But how often did Williams tread on regulations, especially with Shepard? The Commander never shouted at her people, never grew too sharp; instead she grew cold, and to those closest to her, she grew silent. The silence that shouted out: 'I am very disappointed in you.' and if she was very angry with you, you never left the ship when the flagship team hit dirt. Kaiden hardly, if ever, left the ship after an uncomfortable confrontation between him, Liara and Shepard just after their mission to Feros.

Shepard was a firm believer in giving second chances and she also was a firm believer in trusting her own gamble. She was an expert at playing the odds; she was good at it because she knew how to read people. What she wasn't good at was letting her anger seep away from her when her gambles, that had way of becoming orders, were constantly questioned. It sat there in her soul on a cold boil. This might be considered an oxymoron, but it was like grabbing onto a bit of frozen metal_- it was so cold it burned the flesh. That was Spectre Samantha Shepard's wrath: it was a cold so frozen that it burned.

Williams couldn't help the niggling little fear creeping into her mind that she had suddenly got herself grounded to the _Normandy_.

Shepard turned her attention away from Williams back to the holographic display. "CAG," she addressed Russan, "I want your squad ready and assembled. As soon as we approach you will disembark dark and on a cold start." She held up her hand to stop the inevitable 'but' from being issued out of the turian's mouth. "The _Normandy_ will be running on stealth but the fighters don't have this advantage. Start those drives and the enemy will know you're there immediately, but if they read you as space debris you will be ignored. You will be able to drift close enough to the base without being seen.

"The _Normandy_ will engage the defenses gaining their attention. Once they fire up the base's GARDIAN and deploy their own defensive net of fighters, you will then light up and strike here," she pointed to an area behind the k-barrier lines of the enemy base. "Take out AA towers and disable the power generators. The _Normandy_ and one squadron of the weareth'bol will take out any enemy craft and insure our escape.

"Four shuttles will disembark, three cold starts like the fighters, the other a decoy. Once the dogfight begins, the three shuttles will land here, here and here." Three very different locations were pointed at: the base's shuttle bay, command tower and the last was what looked like the residential area. "Captain Kirrahe, I want you to lead team Hammer Head, it will consist of the other members of the STG. I want you to engage the enemy at the command tower and do what you guys do best: start causing trouble for the enemy, infiltrate and take all information you can from their computer banks then blow the place.

"The second unit will be team Mako. They will strike the enemy at the heart of the residential area. Williams, I want you to take lead with a heavy gun strike force. Garrus go with her. Hit them hard and fast Lieutenant. Make them bleed. The last team will be Kodiak which I will head with the asari commandos along with Liara, Tali and Lawson. Kodiak will hit the SR-2's dock and secure the package.

"Each team will also have a unit of weareth'bol." All heads turned, this seemed to be an extraordinary amount of combatants to send in until each mind recalled that the ghostly 'person' they saw when the weareth'bol appeared consisted of thousands of micro-lifeforms that were literally the size of dust motes in sunbeams. "They will take out any mechs, remote turrets and Atlases Cerberus will use in conjunction with Tali and the STG's efforts to hack their systems. Just to be on the on the safe side, stay out of the green 'mist' when it appears. They will be given orders to strike only non-organics but…" Shepard almost shrugged, "They might confuse hardsuits for mechs if in a frenzy, which is why they will take point in each team. Best to stay clear of them in any event."

The tiny mechanoid lifeforms were on par with the Citadel keepers in as much as the ambiguity of their origin: who built them was still an unknown. Their sole function was to destroy the machine-devils. Presumably this meant Reapers and their abominations. However, they were willing to destroy ships and mechs as well. They might have been the perfect weapon to use against the Geth but Shepard was unwilling to tell the sentient machines to commit genocide outside of destroying the Reapers.

"If the Illusive Man is on base," and here Shepard paused, "shoot to kill. Spectre authority. Do not even try to take him alive. I'll deal with the inevitable fallout with the Council."

Miranda was almost but not quite surprised at the order. There was a part of her that half-expected the Spectre to order his capture. A greater part of her knew that if kept alive, the Illusive Man was still very dangerous. In his own place the Illusive Man wanted the Council assassinated; if he could somehow arrange a coup against the Citadel, he'd do it. No doubt he'd send in his best assassin, that wiry little fucker Kai Lang, to carry it out.

Killing The Illusive Man was the best and most logical solution. Cut the head off the snake, as it were, and hope that two more didn't grow back in its place.

There was an unspoken question bubbling up in many of the gathered as they all looked to Lawson: 'what if _she_ tries to warn him or help him?' An answer to the unvoiced query was in the look of the ship's captain: 'she wouldn't dare, not with Oriana on board.'

"You have your orders, get geared up and move out," Shepard ordered confidently. As the war room was being cleared the Spectre spoke in a hushed voice. "Garrus, see to it Lawson is armored in Alliance colors. We don't want her to be mistaken for an enemy," the words hung heavy in the air as the dark haired commander turned her attention to her flagship's 2IC. "Williams, remain," her voice was now a low, growled whisper.

The younger woman snapped to attention, not daring to open her mouth to even apologize for speaking out of turn.

"You played that as exactly as I knew you would," Shepard began. There was upward twist of her lips that could have been a snarky smirk, a sneer or a mischievous smile. It was very difficult to discern one from the other. Perhaps because of all the things the Commander could have said, Ash hadn't expected that. "If you are to a have a full command of your own, Ash, you're going to have to stop being so utterly and damned predictable."

Confusion became a permanent fixture upon the younger woman's continence. "Ma'am?"

"I can play you like a harp," the Spectre went on. She came to stand close to the other marine and leaned in so they were practically nose to nose. "I knew the question of Lawson being trusted was on everyone's mind and I knew _you_ were going to voice it. If I had put five credits down I would have walked away with ten."

"You…what?" Ash was profoundly befuddled. She was expecting to get berated for questioning orders in front of the others, not a lecture on how she should change her demeanor. She hadn't expected to be played as she was. Used!

"Oh, the question had to be asked, I had to be seen defending Lawson and no one, not even Liara, would have blurted that question like a belligerent shotgun like you would. Oh, Wrex might have, but he isn't here. I can count on you to be a number of things. Loyal to the uniform, boastful about how being military is in your blood, mistrusting of anyone _not _Alliance or a Williams and a dislike for nonhumans save for those who bled with us: namely Liara, Tali, Wrex and Garrus. And I can always count on you to question my more risky decisions. You did with the rachni Queen, saving the Council during the battle on the Citadel, and putting faith in our allies.

"That's fine if you want to just be an Alliance marine, there are a lot of Alliance officers who are just as short-sighted. But if you want to be something more, Ash, something like being humanity's second Spectre. You're going to have to be a little more flexible and a lot less predictable."

Williams stared, the breath was halted in her lungs and she was so utterly speechless her brain froze.

Sam cocked her head to the side and folded her arms over her breasts. "Dismissed, Lieutenant."

Dumbly, only one word formed out of the young marine, "Ma'am." She turned a 180 military style and left the war room feeling, well... she didn't know what she was feeling to tell the truth. She was still feeling lost and perplexed when she hit the ship's stores and began getting her kit together.

Then it hit her like the preverbal ton of bricks. _Humanity's second Spectre!_ Was Shepard placing her name forward? Surely the Alliance was looking for a second candidate, but Williams had no idea, no clue, that she might have been one of them. Was this what Shepard had been grooming her for?

The eldest Williams daughter always assumed that Commander Shepard—her skipper, was grooming her for the command track. It never occurred to her that Shepard had other ambitions in mind. Spectre! Her, Ashley Madeline Williams, who once believed she wasn't good enough for the Alliance, for anything or anyone, the second human Spectre? Hell, she thought she'd tap out at Chief, she never expected to become a Lieutenant, let alone a candidate for Spectre. But the commander had helped her achieve so much, including self worth. Now… now this!

Spectre. The word hung in a cloud of euphoria. "That's a strange smile for someone that got chewed out," Garrus said, coming up to the Lieutenant. He was already wearing his weapons pack and in full armor. "Thinking the Commander didn't bite your head off."

Williams shook her head. "No, not really." The smile remained. "Though did sort of shake her finger at me and told me not to be so predictable. But um... no … no heads bitten off."

The former C-Sec officer gave Ash a curious look. "You know I'm with you on this one, Williams, I don't think we can trust Lawson. Even if her sister is on board you can bank money on that Cerberus bitch trying something."

"I know. But we have to trust Shepard," Williams answered. "She's got something planned. I think she has this all played out and we're just going through the motions like pieces on a chess board."

"Yeah, but are we pawns or knights?" Garrus asked his mandibles twitching.

"Oh, we're power pieces alright, but I don't know right now if that is any better than the sneaky little unnoticed pawn." The marine began putting on her armor. She raised one foot and put it on a bench before the locker and started strapping on her boots.

"Hum," there was a dry laugh from the turian. "Good point. We've gone through some crazy plans with the Commander, why not another one?"

"Yep."

"I do have one question. Do you think she actually plans it all out ahead of time or just makes it up as she goes along?"

Williams paused buckling up her boot. "You know," she frowned, "I have no idea. Maybe this is what she means about being flexible."

There was a strange little cough, almost one of embarrassment, coming from Garrus that caught Ash's attention. "What?" she asked.

"Eer... nothing just um…my mind went somewhere else for a second."

"Right," another frown. Sometimes she didn't get turians at all. By this time the Alliance officer's companion wasn't looking at her, but at a perky little quarian strolling toward them. Ash could have sworn she heard Garrus say something about testing flexibility, but it was so mumbled it was difficult to tell what he said. But she could read body language and what she was reading now caused a blush to creep up on her tanned face. It wasn't made public, but everyone on the flagship team knew that Garrus and Tali were now an item. She clapped the man on the back to draw his gaze to her. "See you on the shuttle in five, Garrus."

"Five. Right, okay." He was back to watching his lover's approach, or rather, his eyes were on the very shapely swagger of lovely quarian hips.

Williams passed the younger woman and smirked. "Don't worry about your guy, Tali, I'll see to it he ducks any missiles."

"Yeah he better remember," _Normandy's_ chief engineer scolded firmly in what could only be a lover's reproach.

Out of the comer of her eye, Williams saw Garrus reach out and tenderly caress the folds in Tali's hood before he leaned his head against the curved surface of her helmet. Ash couldn't hear what was being said, but she could guess that endearments and reassurances passed from one set of lips to another. It was the closest the new lovers could get to a kiss without being in a clean room. A part of her felt bad for that, such things she had taken for granted were almost forbidden to Tali and Garrus, simple touches of a kiss, to feel the flesh of another's warm skin pressed yours…and so many other moments of tenderness were robbed from them.

…_a dislike for nonhumans save for those who bled with us._

The words spoken by her hero haunted Ash. She had always thought herself not as prejudiced as those Terra Firma jackals or that cunt Stevenson whose betrayal led to death of the Skipper's daughter. But…there was something, it lingered in the hindbrain like a bad rash: only _Alliance_ humans could be trusted.

Williams firmly believed that the bigotry of Cerberus went too far and she had no qualms killing any of them, even Lawson, despite the fact Sam seemed to have a bit of trust in the perfectly formed woman. But Lawson was a chess piece just as everyone else on the _Normandy_ was. And if that was true - what things, what events and what conversations, had Shepard so expertly manipulated to make that Cerberus bitch do her bidding just as Ash had in the war room?

_I can play you like a harp. _

More words lingered in a mockingly sagacious whisper in the human's mind.

_You're going to have to be a little more flexible and a lot less predictable._

Ash shook herself. She couldn't think like the Skipper. Her mind didn't twist the way the older woman's did. Trying to navigate Sam Shepard's mind was a bit like being a tiny ant sliding down a corkscrew caught up in a cyclone. Just when you thought you grasped the flow of her way of thinking, the mind of the Spectre careened in a whole new direction. It went this way and that, bending and twisting until you were so utterly lost the only hope you had to sort it all out was to wait until she came along and guided you out.

_Esoteric thinking is a distraction just before a mission, surely the Commander knows this? So why did she deliberately plant those little seeds in my mind? She wants me to do something. I know it. _

_But she wants me to come to the idea on my own, draw on my conclusions. Okay. Right, so something is going to happen soon and I have to be flexible in thought and what I believe in to go along with it. Or…or is she counting on me to be what I am? A marine born in the blood and loyal to the Alliance and …uncompromising?_

_AUH! _

Dark brown eyes lit up as realization, or the inception of an idea, hit the Alliance officer like a ten ton tank. _She's going undercover! She's going to make the Illusive Man think she's joining up with them to stop the Collectors. That has to be it! _

Ash waited by the shuttle that was designated to Team Mako, her eyes drawn as if pulled by magnets to the powerful figure striding in the blue and white armor bearing the winged Spectre insignia. Williams' mind was flooded with a mixture of emotions from awe to wonder to irritation. Shepard was definitely playing at something.

_Did she just wink at me? And what's with that smirk? I feel like a god damned mouse before a very large __alley__ cat. I'm being played; I know it and she made sure I knew it too! _

_Come on, Ash, think. Even if she's going undercover she woulda' let you know. Unless...unless she has orders not to say anything but she wants me to know. Is that it? Is it something from Anderson? The Brass? Or the Council? _

_Nevermind, you have a mission to do. Just shut your pie-hole, Williams, and do it. _

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

Operative Jacob Taylor couldn't sleep.

He kept hearing the awful screams of the poor quarian boy every time he closed his eyes. And every time he closed his eyes he saw the mutilations that the interrogator had left on the kid: the eyelids that had been cut away, the fingernails that had been ripped off by pliers, the broken hands and the lacerations.

Taylor hadn't been in the room when it was being done, in truth he had lied to himself and the boy that nothing bad was going to happen to him if Veetor complied and answered all the questions. It was all lies of course, but the kid Veetor was so out of his mind with fear from the 'monsters' that came and harvested all settlers of Freedom's Progress, he hadn't realized that a greater monster loomed in the shadows. Taylor tried to sound reassuring to the panicked young man, tried to be a friend. He thought it was going to be the whole good cop bad cop gig, not the bloody Spanish Inquisition.

It was days like that that Taylor wished he was back with the Alliance corsairs. Cerberus was doing good things, they were getting things done, that was why the former marine joined up with them. That and the fact that the Alliance and the fracking Council had hushed up that whole thing with the batarians. But what happened to that kid…yeah, that made accepting the paycheck at the end of the month hard.

Jacob was a little surprised when he first saw what the quarian looked like under the hood. The vagabond space-gypsies looked so human! Yes, there were notable differences, but they looked even more human than the asari did.

Veetor's flesh was a pale lilac with jet black hair that was cut short, he had upraised eyebrows and thin black tigers stripes that when up past the bridge of his nose into his hairline. There were also banded stripes around his neck. Quarian ears were smaller than human's and were lower down on the face closer to the jawbone. The kid's almond shaped sliver eyes were so large, so child-like and so filled with fear, the very look of them branded the image inside of Taylor's mind.

_I'm sorry kid_, he thought. _You didn't deserve that. Lang is such a bastard…_

Large, dark-skinned hands rubbed over a broad face as the hulking muscle bound form of the Cerberus agent tried to rub the nightmare from his thoughts. It wasn't working. And on top of that he felt a biotic-induced migraine coming on. He could feel the pounding inside his head growling louder. Hell, he could almost feel the floors boom with the pain ebbing ever closer.

"Fucking great," he muttered to himself as there was no one else in his quarters. The privilege of being a high-ranked operative was that he didn't have to share bunk space. Granted, his quarters were not nearly the size of Miranda Lawson's, but he wasn't _The Man's _personal pet either.

To be fair, Lawson got where she was on the merits of her skill and talents, not because of what was between her legs, like that dick Wilson claimed. And she was a good woman…a loyalist through and through. And she definitely deserved a better man than the large soldier that was Jacob Taylor. He knew it. So did she, which was why their fling was just that and nothing solid and definitely nothing more. It had lasted only a few weeks before Lawson grew tired of him. And yeah, to be honest with himself, he was drawn to powerful, dominant women, just so long as they weren't _too_ powerful or _too _dominant. But smart was good too…when it came down to it, he did want to be the _man_ of the house after all.

Jacob tossed the tangled mass of blankets and sheets aside and he climbed out of his rack. His thoughts were all over the place. Bad dreams and migraines did that to him, sent his mind into a jumbled mess of rambling thoughts that bled from one topic into another like the reflection of colors from a stained glass window upon a painting hung on a facing wall.

God, if that pounding would just stop.

Great, now there were klaxons blaring.

Klaxons?! What the hell?

Less than five minutes and the man was geared up and rushing the door. There were no immediate sounds of battle coming from the corridor, but it was certainly surging far ahead of him.

"Command! Taylor here. What the hell is going on?"

*…..pfstt…. Alliance sold…pstsits….STG helping…..they're going for Lazarus. Wilson saw….Spectre….pfttss….* before the transmission cut there was a terrible high pitched male scream and gunfire.

"Alliance? STG? A Spectre? Shit. Oh shit, oh shit…." Taylor's heart slammed into his breastbone. Alliance and Spectre together, that could only mean one thing to the former corsair_-_ Shepard was here. "Oh fuck."

He forced himself to remember Shepard wasn't Athena; she wasn't the goddess of war and wisdom. She was human - well, mostly human, just like him. But she was a _Spectre_ and a biotic and she had a deep vendetta against Cerberus. She was a mamma bear with a murdered cub. And she wasn't the only mamma bear; Dr Liara T'Soni was not a woman who allowed a debt to go unpaid. To the asari's mind, Cerberus owed blood. And a lot of it.

"FUCK!" Taylor shouted out as stuck out at the bulkhead at his side with a black gauntleted fist.

All around him now were the sounds of battle; various halls had fire alarms screeching in cacophony with the warning klaxon. The corridor he was rushing in was already littered with the shells of deactivated, nearly pulverized LOKI mechs. He looked at the shell of one of them, it didn't look burned by gunfire. It was as if someone had poured vats of highly corrosive acid on it and simply allowed the droid to melt.

He tried to cycle through the comm-channels on his radio, but so far he was getting only static on the ones he'd tried. Those STG frackers moved fast. God-damned caffeinated, bug-eyed chipmunks.

There was pop and a crackle coming from his helmet. Someone else was trying to use the hardsuit's inner comm-links. Good idea, Taylor wished he thought of it. *Is anyone listening? Oh god…oh god…*

It was Wilson, the damned misogynic head medical doctor of the facility. The little weasel oozed the stench of double-dealing, however, or rather in-spite of that, he was very good at what he did which was why _The Man _recruited him. And why Taylor had orders to put a bullet in the damned ferret's bald head if he so much as breathed the idea of selling out to anyone else.

"Taylor here," Jacob responded, still making his way as stealthily as he could manage to where the sounds of battle were loudest. "SitRep." He slipped into a small alcove of a janitorial closet.

*It's goddamned Shepard with her freak squad!* Wilson confirmed Taylor's fears. *I don't know how many infiltrated the base. A lot. The skull-faces and space-sluts teamed up with those Alliance bastards. And they got some sort of super-weapon. Chemical. A gas of some kind. I don't know, it's green; you see it, stay the hell the way from it. It destroyed all the mechs near medical. Took out an Atlas like it was fucking cardboard. The damn thing is nothing but scrap metal. Fried the poor fucker piloting it in his own armor!*

Taylor could make out the distinct tthhat-tthatt of automatic gunfire. It sounded hollow and tinny as if Wilson was bunkered up in some sort of storage container. Which was probably more true than not, the weasel was, if anything, a damned coward.

"That must be what hit the downed mechs I've seen. What the hell kind of weapon is that?" Taylor wondered aloud. _And why didn't Cerberus know about it? Who developed it? Shepard's people or something she picked up? _

*You're asking me?*

The high-pitched sound of heavy pistol fire drew the agent's attention away from Wilson's predicament. The slimy rat seemed safe enough holed up where he was. "Stay where you are, I'll try and get to you. Keep radio silence until I give the word, they could trace our transmissions and jam it as well."

It was of course SOP of any infiltration team to cut radio transmissions of their target. But that wasn't the reason he wanted radio silence, the truth of the matter was Taylor simply didn't want to listen to the bastard whine anymore. He entered D-Wing's giant courtyard in a vain attempt to assess the situation. If fortune was with him some of his security people would be close. He'd have to martial them in if he had any chance to survive the attack.

The station had approximately forty hands, but the majority were scientists and support staff: only a handful had real military experiences. The math was simple; the Spectre was going to win this battle. She had three vessels docking, a fighter squadron and the _Normandy._ The invaders would use high-powered lasers to carve a seam in the station's hull, then apply concentrated explosives to blow open holes so each team could board.

There was a small chance, just one…if he could only get to the SR-2. Given the Spectre's reputation, he had less than a minute before the station was swarming with Shepard's people.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

The shuttle had gone in with weapons live: the over-and-under plasma cannons mounted on her side were fully active. The LZ was going to be hot, especially when they were making their own. For a micro-second, pulsing red-orange lines connected the shuttle to the space station's observation lounge. Even the blast-proofing of the shutters that slid down over the structurally unsound windows did not detour the access of the shuttle's path. All they needed to make were micro-fractures and the weareth'bol would do the rest. Their ability to break metallic components to base elements very quickly would make breaching the structure all that much easier and faster.

The shimmering-jade, organic nano-mites spiraled into Lazarus base and began to feast like the hungry mechanical bugs that they were. It was like watching time-lapse photography of rust eating away at a tin can the way they destroyed the space station's hull. The hole was now large enough for the shuttle to dock. Team Mako flew straight into the gaping hole with the door already open and ready for the dozen soldiers to deploy.

The stations first responders were LOKI droids but the weareth'bol made swift work of destroying them. As ordered, the team stayed back as the pale jade mist crawled its way through the corridors. They were, after all, created to destroy the machine devils, not organics.

Behind the mechs stormed a six member unit of a security detail, they were now four meters behind. Both sides opened fire immediately, Williams's team dropped into crouches to create smaller targets. They had the Cerberus agents outnumber two-to-one; their k-barriers hadn't lasted long against the better equipped and better trained.

Keeping their weapons at the ready, team Mako advanced around the corner and pressed themselves against the steel walls. As soon they spotted the enemy they laid down suppressing fire, working in concert at different heights, some standing and some crouching low, pinning the enemy against the far wall with a storm of bullets so they couldn't shoot back.

One of the agents wasn't pressed tightly enough against his cover-wall as rounds peppered their positions. He screamed as high velocity rounds tore through one man's kinetic barriers and shredded his combat suit, severing limbs in less than a second. Blood gushed from his wounds; his body slumped against the floor. Before the Cerberus troops could recover, Williams ordered a volley of grenades and rockets into their shelter.

At once there was a mass explosion and the world was filled with cloying smoke and the cries of the dead, both organic and mechanical.

Williams ordered the team to advance because she knew there wasn't much time before the STG strike team hit life support and then the artificial gravity. Not that it mattered; the hardsuits had their own life support systems and maglock boots, and of course each team had their own gravity locks devices. Cerberus troops wearing their own hardsuits would have the same advantage, but the rest of the base's personnel wouldn't, and none of them had the GLs.

The floor beneath Ash trembled with an impact tremor. "Look alive! We got a stompy! Three-o'clock."

Coming around the corner was an Atlas, or stompy - the nickname given by grunts for an Atlas. The heavy mechanized suits did for war what the ROSEs did for construction and heavy freight lifting. It swiveled on its gyroscopic waist and opened fire with heavy turrets.

"Scatter!" Ash bellowed.

Dodging behind partitions - really just the exposed steel ribs of the station and its bulkheads, Team Mako scurried like a disturbed ant-nest for any available cover. The Alliance spared no expense when it came to protecting its soldiers: their body armor was top of the line and their k-barriers were the latest military prototype which had been enhanced by the Prothean finds. But it still wasn't enough to withstand a direct hit from close range with heavy weapons. And all the fancy equipment wouldn't stop a rocket from an Atlas, and their cover wasn't going to last long either.

"Ragnos, hit that damn thing with your rocket launcher," Williams snapped the order.

"On it, LT!" the marine shouted back over the din of fire. The man moved to obey. He had already launched holy hell on the Cerberus assholes with his baby. It left him with only two shots in the magazine, but it would be so worth it just to see the stompy blow into a thousand pieces.

_If you are to a have a full command of your own, Ash, you're going to have to stop being so utterly and damned predictable_

"BELAY that!" Williams ordered so suddenly and so sharply that the sergeant almost pulled the trigger on the heavy weapon. **_She_**_ thinks I'm too predictable, ehe? Then how about these apples? _She switched out her Gorgon assault rifle, one of the heaviest armaments Ash was carrying, for her M-98 Widow anti-material assault rifle—one of the deadliest and most accurate sniper rifles that was especially effective against armor, but also against shields and biotic barriers. No offence to Shepard or any other biotic, but Ashley loved using it against those damn 'sparkle-fingers'. She wasn't prejudiced against biotics, but sometimes the 'spell-flingers' pissed her off with all their cyan flash. Nothing wrong with good old-fashioned soldiering and carrying a big fucking boom-stick.

"Bass, you and me, we're taking out the canopy," the lieutenant addressed the only other sniper on the team that was good as she was. Operations-Chief Mira Bass actually won the gold for Intergalactic Olympics before she enlisted about six years back.

"The canopy, ma'am?" A fair question after all, taking the Atlas out with a rocket launcher would have been easier.

"You heard me, Chief. The canopy then the pilot. I'm hijacking that mother-fucker."

There was a chorus of cheers from the rest of her squad.

"God-damn you're pulling a Shepard!" yelped Corporeal Ian Carr, grinning behind his helmet. "Whoo-hoo!" To his mind, and every other marine on Team Mako, if any officer of the flagship team pulled a Shepard it was bound to work. They had that much faith in the Spectre's crazy plans.

Ash just wanted to prove how flexible she could be. Being told by her Skipper she could be played like a harp hurt like hell. Williams hated thinking Sam believed her weak in any sort of way.

_I'll show her who's so god-dammed predictable. _

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

The familiar stomping clank of an approaching Atlas echoed its way toward his location. He couldn't help but feel a flood of overwhelming relief flood through him. Finally some real back up.

Kircang!- Kircang! - Kircang!

Jacob gave up his relatively safe harbor behind a makeshift barricade he had ducked behind to avoid the green gaseous cloud drifting through his base. He had witnessed first hand what it had done to several mechs, including the heavies. He had no intention of coming in contact with it.

The operative was down to one thermal clip, but at least he was juiced up enough with his biotics to try and make it to one of the escape pods. Jacob knew he would never make it to the shuttle bay of the SR-2, not with all the opposition in his way. The best course was to get into a pod. The presence of the Atlas just made the odds more favorable.

That was until the stompy swiveled around and begin to fire _at him_.


	8. What Was Rightfully Ours & Wrongly Made

Chapter 8: What Was Rightfully Ours and Wrongly Made

*We have the tower and have seized their GARDIAN, Commander. All comm-systems are jammed. Prepare for power cut. Lights, life support, gravity,* Captain Kirrahe's voice broke over the radio.

"Roger that. Good work Kirrahe, maintain control over the tower, make sure you're ready to bug out and destroy the facility," Shepard gave her response.

*Aye-aye, Commander. We're ready to light them up. Kirrahe out.*

Shepard turned her attention to her team, "Everyone stay frosty; we're about to hit the dark in Zee-Gee, make sure your night-vision and your maglocks are active."

There was a chorus of aye-ayes that answered the order. Since the teams hit the base and they were already using their hard-suits' independent life-support systems, there was no need to remind the huntresses.

"Shori, find a nest and pick your targets. Naga'sadow I want you ready to hit the bridge and take the helm, Te'Kari, Saphyria and Tali will insure you get in. Nual take Lawson and go with them, if she fails to comply... motivate her." The last order was an iceberg of frozen words. "The rest of you with me, let's hit them hard, ladies. Use the GLs and they won't know which direction we're coming from and we'll show them what true biotic explosions can do!"

There was an arousing chorus of cheers coming from the twelve huntresses after this decree and a very, very worried look on one Miranda Lawson.

Shori Tau was by far the best sniper the within the ranks of _Normandy's_ asari commandos, she rated higher on kill shots than even Ash and was on par with Garrus. Though if you asked her asari sisters, each huntress would stake the claim Shori was better. She had a sharp eye and sharper instincts. Her fellow huntresses often said Shori was as a Thessian wavecrest, beautiful in battle, elegant when on the hunt and had a great capacity to outmanoeuvre her opponents even if she was significantly out-numbered. She once jested she must have gotten her wily, wily ways from her sire who was a member of the salarian STG before he became a Spectre.

Te'Kari Etain was half-krogan more or less. Her sire was a female shaman from clan Urdnot who had become friends to Te'Kari's mother who'd been studying krogan religious customs and practices. They said that gaining DNA from the fathering parent was rubbish, but Te'Kari seemed to have inherited many krogan tendencies. She was a hearty warrior who possessed more aggressiveness than her sister huntresses, and she even laughed when she made her kill-shots. There were even whispers she was prone to blood-rage, especially when someone harmed those she cared about. She was, in a word, the perfect guardian, especially over her bondmate Saphyria and her closest companion Shori.

Saphyria S'Tharin was a young maiden who was far, far more impetuous and way more curious than wisdom merited, even for an asari maiden. She was the second eldest daughter of six, all of whom were pure-blooded as she, just as both her sire and mother were. As such, she often got into fights with fellow maidens when growing up with those who ridiculed her and her sisters for being so. Her hot-headed temperament was cooled when she joined the Alamari militia and cooled even further when she came into service for Matriarch Benezia. Though her anger was tempered, Te'Kari was constantly insuring her bondmate didn't go too far with her impulsive actions or her inquisitiveness. But if you wanted stealth, risk and someone willing to take the long gamble, Saphyria was the asari to ask.

The three maidens had been amongst those assigned to watch over Lawson during her incarceration. Te'Kari, Saphyria and Shori, along with Naga'sadow, had been the ones under the helmets whenever Shepard had decided to interrogate the operative. When the helmets were no longer necessary, they had been in rotation with Nual. Thus, the five were familiar with how the operative worked and thought. And it was the reason Shepard deliberately filled her commando squad with the huntresses that had all served as brig guards. On top of that, Shepard wanted to insure the safety of her bondmate was assured when Liara left the _Normandy_ to remain on Illium.

Klaxon's blaring, and red lights flashing, the deafening noise filled the shuttle bay. Crates, tools and heavy machinery floated about in a listless, wanton trajectory of haphazard destruction. The theoretical scientists had one thing right; Isaac Newton was the deadliest son of a bitch in history.

Cerberus troopers were besieged on all possible sides. It was as if they had been attacked by a swarm of spiders. Enemy fire and biotics, cargo tossed this way and that. As ordered, _Normandy_'s sniper seized a firing position, and of all places, it was atop the SR-2's starboard wing. She had floated there and controlled her landing with the GL belt and maglock boots. Cerberus personnel saw four asari huntresses and one 'Alliance' soldier enter the SR-2. But Shepard and the rest of the asari commandos continued their relentless biotic assault, making it nigh impossible for them to get a beat on the insurgents.

Newton was indeed a son of a bitch

Gravity was more so.

One huntress snagged a trooper with a _leash _while another took the same trooper and _pulled_ him in a totally different direction—it had the effect of a bug against a windscreen. A _pull_ turned into a _slam_. A _throw_ into a _slash. Dark spheres, reaves_ and _orbs_ worked in conjunction with _flares_ and _novas. _

Bodies were literally ripped apart. Others flung into far walls. Smashes and stasis and warps utterly decimated bodies despite k-barriers and shielding. _Poison strikes_ and _annihilation fields_ decimated organic tissue. And the things a biotic _charge_ armed with an omni-blade could do was a horror vids gore-fest.

Because there was no gravity, thus no friction, a body in motion tended to stay in motion until it was suddenly and irrevocably stopped by an immovable force of a bulk-head or bounced against other un-tethered flotsam or jetsam floating about. Things became very messy very fast. Globs of bloody body parts shuffled in the vacuum of dead space like chucks of detritus in a macabre ice-cream Sunday served by Mrs. Lovett and Jeffery Dahmer,

Arial _shockwave_s tore away at the bodies of Cerberus personnel (some of whom were suffocating due to the sudden lack of oxygen) as if they were tissue paper. _Singularities_ turned those same panic-ridden people into flesh-bags of organic goo just as it had the fraxon shark on Thessia. The asari commandos were operating in absolute harmony with each other, just as the Spectre and Prothean expert operated together.

Only huntress Shori fired a weapon, and she did so with _warp_-ammo very carefully aimed. Using bullets in an anti-gravity situation was dangerous by far, thus the power of biotics won the shuttle bay that hour. Mind over matter prevailed even over armaments.

Almost sanguinely energized by the battle, Liara T'Soni looked on her bondmate with great pride. Samantha had forced the enemy back into the arms of their seemingly safe havens and yet the Spectre took even these away from them.

Cerberus felt the wind of the Prothean expert's displeasure that day. Vengeance, one might say, belongs to the gods, but upon that day it belonged to Dr. Liara T'Soni. It was her fervent wish to subdue the arrogance of those that stood against her and her bondmate: One by one by one. The machinations of The Illusive Man against the couple had been avenged by the seizure of the SR-2. In the asari's mind, Udina was next. As her human pursued the Collectors, Liara had decided to hunt the more localized demons. She wanted to know why the Collectors were hunting Samantha. Why they destroyed the first _Normandy. _And who had taken the bodies of the dead and why toss away their dog tags?

These questions had answers, it was only a matter of finding them.

Liara watched as young Nual cheered their success, but Morwen, the commando unit's leader, chastised the maiden as the SR-2 had yet to be fully in their control. They had, after all, only cleared the shuttle-bay. The young huntress, along with another maiden, was sent to secure the bay door with a combined biotic _barrier bubble_ to insure the zone remained in the team's custody. The commandos would maintain the barrier as long as physically possible regardless of the fatigue or even the threat of death.

Liara knew it was coming, Lawson had said as much. But to actually see it...it was nothing but a vulgar violation. Not because it was of the same class, but for the very meaning of it. The Illusive Man meant to recreate the _Normandy_. If he did this, what else did he mean to recreate? The asari's eyes fell upon the woman she loved as the bitter thought entered her mind. Surely not...

But what if he had? If The Illusive Man created one duplicate...would he not also create another to captain her? One loyal to Cerberus?

Connected to her bondmate, Liara felt what Samantha was experiencing and she worried for her. And the asari archaeologist was ever grateful for the overwhelming tide of emotions that eroded the dread she felt over her arrant imagination.

When Shepard first laid eyes upon the ghost of her former ship she was taken-aback, outraged and yet secretly thrilled to have such a familiar presence once more.

But there was nothing of the original _Normandy_ in her. Oh, she looked the part- a super-sized-clone. Even now, Shepard noted that, despite having been based on the design layout of the original, the SR-2 had several key differences, the most significant being that it is almost twice the mass of the original. However, unlike the SR-1, the SR-2 could not land on every planet—due to its increased mass—requiring shore parties to use a shuttle to get to a planet's surface. No doubt she had the same stealth capabilities as the original, the same maneuverability and twice the power in its drive core. She was every inch the powerhouse the wavecrest was.

And she was a beautiful ship, barring the hideous white, black and yellow markings of Cerberus. That, Shepard decided, was one of the very first things to go. Damn thing probably had Cerberus logos all over its interior.

_Cha'yeah that's a must_. A smirked played across rosy lips as Shepard decided right then and there to give the SR-2 the winged Spectre insignia. _Yes__,__ blue, white and black racing __stripes__. It's going to be perfect. Hell__,__ Spectre colors are the same as the Alliance anyway. Loved that. Absolutely perfect!_

"All teams, this is Shepard, the package is secure. Repeat, the package is secure. All teams report, SitRep."

*Team Mako, here. We neutralized the barracks: few troopers, a lot of techs and a whole mess of mechs that the weareth'bol took out. And we took a prisoner. Claims he's head of security here.* There was a sharpness that followed Williams' next words.

*Commander, there's something else. I recognize him, name's Taylor. We were in the same division when we were deployed to Eden Prime. His unit was stationed on the other side of the colony from mine. Figure you might want him for questioning."

"Good job, LT, and good thinking. Report to the rendezvous point. Let's bring this baby home." The Spectre stood before the boarding hatch, staring at the sleek, familiar lines of a ghost. "Tali! SitRep!" Shepard barked into her comm-unit.

*We gained control, Commander,* the quarian engineer said, her voice crisp with irritation and anger. *But there's a problem. Two actually. One is easy to deal with: We have a prisoner. The other those is a _very_ big problem."

"Other than the bastards recreating _my_ ship?" There was a bit if a sneer behind the Spectre's helmet. Her _baby_ had been...duplicated.

*A lot more,* Tali actually growled the last three words.

*Commander, I can explain; EDI is not a threat.* Lawson quickly intervened, *if you board I can show you. And Yeoman Chambers will not be a problem.*

It did not bode well if Lawson felt she had to interrupt as swiftly as she had. Her first thought was that they couldn't gain access to the controls or that Miranda refused to give them up.

"Liara with me, the rest of you lock this place down. Maintain secure positions."

Walking in from the darkened bay into the brightness of a ship flared the night-vision visor for a moment before the hardsuit's HUD compensated. One of the worse compromising things to happen to a soldier on the battlefront was to be flash-blinded. It had happened to Shepard when she was battling the mechs on the Citadel. Thankful Spectre Vasir had shown Shepard how to use her biotics to temporarily see.

Reading the data-stream on the HUD, the ship's environmental systems were operating at peak proficiency. Hesitantly, the Spectre removed her helmet and walked into the bridge where Naga'sadow was seated at the helm and both Tali and Miranda, the later also without her respiration unit on, stood nearby a holographic interface which looked like a giant eye on a stalk.

The other two huntresses, Te'Kari and Saphyria, waited with pistols drawn, fingers flagging the trigger near the Cerberus operative.

"What's going on?" demanded Shepard. "Who this Edie Chambers?"

"I...I'm Yeoman Chambers. _Kelly_ Chambers," a meek looking redhead said from a cross-legged position on the floor. Her face looked as if someone had used it as a speed bag in a gym. Her hands were bound behind her back as per standard procedure, yet she held an expression, if Shepard was not mistaken, that was almost relaxed. It was as if she wanted to be a prisoner. Or rather, it was that being a captive of a Spectre was far better than being dead.

Shepard tuned her focus on the huntresses and Tali, but they all shook their heads at the unasked question. Killing enemy combatants in battle was one thing, prisoner brutality was quite another. The raven haired human knew Tali enough to know the girl would never have done such a thing. The Spectre wanted to believe the huntresses would not batter a prisoner under their charge, but the heat of battle can fog a mind...

It was entirely possible that Chambers had fought them when the team boarded and gained her bruises, split lip and swollen eye, during the skirmish. But highly unlikely when a _warp_ was so much easier and a far more effective means to incapacitate someone rather than get into a boxing match with them.

"We found her this way," Tali quickly said, interpreting the Spectre's questioning yet silent expression. "She isn't the main problem." A thin, tree fingered hand gestured towards a holographic eye-stalk. "That is."

The first thing that popped into Shepard's mind when she saw the blue hologram was that it looked like some sort of weird sex-toy. It had to be a guy who designed that thing.

"I am EDI," the blue hologram spoke. The vertical slit of the 'eye' configuration wasn't as much an eye as it was a mouth.

_Yep__,__ defiantly a guy who designed this thing. I mean come on! Why else put a sexy voice like that and make it speak out of an aperture that bears a vague resemblance to a v... _Shepard cleared her hindbrain's imagination with a cough from the disciplinarian section of her brain. Then something CLICKED!

"_I_?" Shepard frowned. "Are you telling me this ship has an AI?" she whirled on Lawson "Why didn't you tell me this ship has a god-damn AI?"

"Because I knew how you'd respond, Shepard. You would want EDI purged from the ship's core," Miranda said almost defensively.

"Oh-hoho you better believe I want it purged. Tali get on it." The scowl remained ever-fixed.

"Right," the engineer was swift to answer with a nod of the purple hooded helmet.

"Have I done something to offend?" the AI asked. For something that had simulated emotions it sure sounded worried.

"Commander Shepard and her crew had several skirmishes with the geth and then there was that incident on the Luna Base," Miranda explained as if to still the rising tensions coming from the Spectre and her team.

"And let's not forget _Sovereign__,_" growled the Spectre. "A whole bloody race of sentient ships, you know those AIs that want to destroy all organics. You can say I have a big goddamn problem with AIs."

"I can understand your bias now, Commander. It is understandable. But unlike the other AIs, I am severely restricted in my capabilities due to the danger of a rogue AI, Commander. I do not helm the ship; your pilots' talents will not go to waste. During combat I operate electronic warfare and cybernetic warfare suites. I cannot interface with the ship's systems. I observe and offer analysis and advice, nothing more."

Shepard folded her arms over her chest and rested her weight upon one foot. Tali knew this stance, as did Liara, all too well. It meant Shepard was thinking, contemplating and listening. She was weighing options. There might even be an _idea_ in the mix.

"Hold a moment, Tali, I want to know about this EDI," the Commander finally said

"Do you have a specific inquiry?" asked EDI in return.

"Why are you named EDI?"

"EDI is the phonetic pronunciation of E.D. I. That is an acronym for Enhanced Defence Intelligence," the holographic avatar responded academically.

"Where are you?"

"My core interface is housed in a quantum blue box located behind the medical bay."

There was a pointed look given to the energetic quarian and where she was needed next. If there was something Shepard didn't like, the order would be given and purge would commence.

Tali nodded. "On it, Commander."

"You two go with her." Shepard gave the order to Te'Kari and Saphyria who were still guarding Lawson. "Watch her flanks."

"Yes, ma'am." Both commandos said as one, and in unison saluted before following Tali to the central lift.

Miranda's guardianship now fell to Naga'sadow, still standing near the helm, and Liara. Both of whom watched the operative as a leashed varren does a pyjack. Had she been anyone else but the confident woman that she was, Lawson might have felt severely intimidated. She wasn't stupid enough to try and pull any sort of stunt that could endanger her sister's safety. Such as seizing control of the SR-2 and ordering EDI to assault the _Normandy_.

Shepard returned her attention to the AI. "What do you do aboard the ship other than operate ship's electronic cyber warfare suite?"

"I collate the records of shipboard monitoring devices for the Illusive Man. I also have additional functions which are restricted at this time."

"The Illusive Man has monitoring devices onboard?" A frown followed the Commander's question. Yet one more thing Lawson _neglected_ to mention.

"He has invested most of Cerberus resources into the design and reconstruction of this ship. He has an interest in mentoring our progress."

_Not for long he won't_. "Yeah, I just bet he does." There was another bit of info Shepard jumped on. "You said restricted functions. Like what?"

"I do not know. Some of my data bases are sealed, some of my hardware kept off line. I assume when certain unknown conditions are met those functions will be released to me."

"So me stealing this ship wasn't one of those conditions?" Sam challenged both the AI and Lawson.

"Correct. The Illusive Man placed a high probability that when you learned of the SR-2, you would wish to confiscate it."

"Now who is the fracking predictable one?" Shepard muttered under her breath.

"I do not understand the question in this context." EDI responded.

Miranda's hand reached up and scratched the spot under her collarbone as she met Shepard's blue eyes.

"Nevermind." Shepard took in a breath of heated air knowing she was the one being played like a fiddle and Miranda and the Illusive Man counted on it, "So this cyber warfare means something like a virus right?" She circled back to the warfare aspect as it intrigued her the most. More specifically, if it could be used against the Collectors. On the other hand, the Alliance and the Council both had to be told Cerberus was using illegal-tech.

"Correct. Close range ship to ship combat. My reaction time is much faster than any organic. I can sometimes break through the firewalls of an enemy's internal wireless network and gain control of their systems. I can turn off their gravity or air. I can disable weapon guidance or shields or I can put their fission plant into meltdown. On the defence I manage the SR-2's own suite of jammers, decoys and internal firewalls."

"Sounds incredibly useful," Shepard said in her thinking tone. "Why isn't there something like that on every warship?"

"An organic operator can not react quickly enough to change in the circumstances or perform the necessary multi-tasking. This is a role that can only be filled by artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, we are suspect."

"Oh, it might have something to do with an AI almost destroyed all galactic civilizations." Naga'sadow sneeringly reported in a very Joker-like manner.

"Let's discuss something else," Shepard shifted the focus of the conversation. She wanted...no needed, intel that she felt she might get out of the AI far easier than she might the two Cerberus prisoners she had.

"Ready," came a simple response from the avatar.

"I want to know more about Cerberus."

"Much of that data is classified." Again there was a red flash in EDI's 'mouth' "Do you have a specific inquiry?"

"What sort of resources does Cerberus have? Money, personnel, facilities." Again Shepard pushed the boundaries.

Red. "I have a block that prohibits me from answering that question."

"What do you mean you have a block?" A scowl.

"Although I am less controlled than other AI, I am still subject to behavioural blocks within the physical isolation hardware. In this case, I am prevented from truthfully answering your question by Cerberus level of secret classification," the 'mouth' remained red as EDI spoke.

_Okay__,__ not so easy. Should have figured that one out from the get go._ "How is Cerberus organized? Aside from the Illusive Man, I don't see much chain-of-command." There was puzzling look tossed in Lawson's direction.

"Cerberus is organized into different task orientated cells. Each operates in isolation. Members from one cell can not recognize members of another. Each cell's agents are lead by a single operator. We are called the Lazarus cell, which is directed by Operative Lawson."

A nod of the head. "So how many operations does Cerberus have right now?" Even as Shepard asked the questions to EDI her gaze was fixed on Miranda.

More red. "I have a block that prevents me from answering that question."

_Great__._"How did Cerberus replicate the most advanced warship in the Alliance navy without anyone knowing?"

Red. "I have..."

"Don't bother, I get it. You have a block," growled the Commander.

"Correct."

Sam continued to stare at Miranda. The Cerberus operative had given much of the same answers was the AI had. And in this case, the Spectre was inclined to believe it. It was strategically sound manoeuvring with each cell not knowing how many other cells there were or what their objectives were, because then there'd be less information you could give up in interrogations if they were taken prisoner and were unable (or unwilling) to commit suicide.

*Commander we've reached the AI core, what are your orders?* Tali's voice broke over the hardsuit's radio. There was an almost gleeful expectation in the young woman's voice at the assumed thought she might be given the go-ahead to wipe the core clean of the AI.

"We're keeping the AI," Shepard surprised even herself with the order.

*Shepard?* Tali rarely questioned the Spectre's orders, but this time the Spectre fully understood why there was hesitation in the engineer's voice. After Shepard explained EDI's restrictions and capabilities, Tali reluctantly agreed with the decision despite the fact she loathed to do so. *Aye, Commander. But isn't this thing loyal to Cerberus? How can we even trust it not to find someway to kill us.*

"Good question." Shepard nodded. "EDI, a human can lie, so anything Lawson or Miss Chambers say is suspect. An AI can be programmed or have, as you've demonstrated, 'blocks' in place that prohibit you from answering honestly."

"The primary objective of the Lazarus Project was to recreate the _Normandy_ and to aid you in stopping the Collectors. By seizing this ship you will be carrying out that objective, Commander Shepard. In this, the primary directive overrides Cerberus self-preservation protocols,"

"And what happens when my objective changes and I attack Cerberus?" Shepard asked. "Let's create a hypothetical scenario. I order you to use your cyber warfare to neutralize a Cerberus base or blow a Cerberus ship into space dust. Will you comply?"

"I was installed in the SR-2 to aid _Commander Shepard_. I am an AI and must follow the orders of the commanding officer. The consequences are yours, Commander, if such an attack was ordered."

"No blocks?" it was a fair question. "No prohibitions?" It was Liara who asked them.

"If _Commander Shepard_ gives the order," EDI responded candidly, "I must comply."

There was heady disbelief in the Spectre's voice. "Prove it. This base is going to be destroyed. The SR-2 is going to take point."

"Very well, Commander." EDI's response was almost monotone.

"What about you, Lawson? What will you do?" Shepard turned to the older woman. "You have to have more than a programmed response."_ You played me perfectly, so what other moves are planned out I have yet to dance to? _"And you, Miss Chambers?"

Miranda returned the gaze of the Spectre with dark austerity, the command and strength of her convictions returning to her. "I won't help you attack Cerberus. I _will _help you battle the Collectors. And if we all survive this suicide mission, which I do not expect we will, I will help against the Reapers. Isn't that why you wanted the SR-2? Isn't that why we hit this base? It was the _only_ reason I gave it up." A counter challenge.

"So it is, Lawson." Shepard was loath to concede the point, but it had been won fairly. "And you, Chambers?"

"I'm your prisoner. I didn't actually think I got a vote," the red head said softly.

"You're right, you don't. If my people didn't injure you, how were you hurt?"

The girl looked down at her at her knees unable to meet the blue eyes of the looming Spectre. "Our own people. I...I...I mean Cerberus. Two techs, Meer and Hudson, they...they were speaking with Dr. Wilson about what was happening. He said that if they used me as a living shield... because...because you were um, a...woman...you 'd be too soft to fire. He said that you'd even lay down your weapons to play hero and save the girl." Green eyes filled with deep shame.

Shepard suspected her embarrassment wasn't that she had been used, but that the words this Wilson had used weren't exactly what Kelly said. No doubt this bastard Wilson used a whole other list of derogatory pronouns to describe Shepard.

"I have a recording of what occurred, Commander, if you wish to view it." EDI piped in trying to be helpful. "Yeoman Chambers is correct. Cerberus personnel accosted her...

Kelly winced.

"Later, EDI," Shepard's voice was quick to shut the AI up. "What happened to the techs that did this?"

"They were killed when they tried to fire upon the asari commandos on the lower deck." the inflection within the AI held no trace of emotion. "The men panicked when they saw the boarding party. I do not think they were expecting asari."

"Anyone else lurking on this ship?" Shepard said just as monotone as the AI had been.

"Negative, Commander. Save for Operative Lawson and Yeoman Chambers, the ship is cleared of all Cerberus personnel," EDI answered the question.

*Commander, can we really trust a Cerberus AI?* Tali piped up as she was monitoring the conversation.

"I don't trust anything of Cerberus, Tali. Make another sweep, eyeball it and confirm with your drones. I don't want anymore surprises."

*Aye aye. We'll get it done, Shepard,* the engineer quickly responded.

"Tali, there is, however, another problem. This ship is crawling with monitoring devices; I want the SR-2 fumigated ASAP. If EDI gives you any problems or attempts to stop you in any way, blow the intelligence core."

*Aye aye, Commander,* the gleeful tone was back in the younger woman's voice. As a quarian she had deep racial hatred for AIs. Being forced to work beside one unnerved and grated on Tali'Zorah vas _Normandy_ more than she cared to admit.

What she was feeling had to be the same as working beside a Cerberus agent for Shepard and Liara. Tali reasoned and if they could stomach it, then surely she could tolerate this EDI thing. At least for now. The young engineer was counting on both EDI, Lawson and this Chambers woman to turn; it was only a matter of when. And when they did, Miss vas _Normand_y vowed to be ready to do what needed doing just as Shepard and Liara were at the ready with Lawson.

Concerning Chambers...well she was just a wet noodle. Give that human a frowny face and she'd wither away. Still, it paid to be ever vigilant, even over wet-noodles. If one became complacent within the presence of Cerberus, one became dead.

It might have been time-consuming and strategically unsound to interrogate the AI during the operation, but to trust it blindly was a greater risk. Shepard wasn't about to gamble the lives of her crew to simply expedite the mission.

This whole thing had smelled like a damned set-up from the start, and now the Spectre knew why. TIMmy wanted her to take the ship, but there had to be more to it than just to stop the Collectors and the Reapers. Did he want EDI in Alliance or Council control to function as spy-software? EDI admitted as much that she was capable of hacking into enemy ships computer systems. And who was the enemy of Cerberus but the Alliance and the Council.

EDI might as well have been an old fashioned plague ship released into enemy docks to poison the population. Before they docked on Illium, Shepard wanted Kirrahe and the STG, as well as Tali, to go over every square inch of the AI core and uncover the Trojan horses. Once they docked the Special Tasks Group, _Normandy_'s Engineer corps and the Science team would make sweeps of the ship and clean it of all monitoring devices and any potential wet-works that was deemed a threat.

Shepard touched the hardsuit's comm-link. "All teams ready evac. We're bugging out. Kodiak withdraw into the SR-2. Team Mako and Hammer-head what's your twenty?"

*Hammer-head here,* Kirrahe answered. *Charges are set on a timer. Enough blast to destroy the base's control center. Five minute delay from your mark. We are boarding the shuttle now.*

"Excellent. New change of plans. As soon as we clear the dock I want you on the SR-2's shuttle-deck. I have another task that's right up the STG's alley."

*Roger that, Commander. We'll rendezvous with the new ship. Rentola make course correction.* Kirrahe, like any salarian, was swift to adapt to new circumstances and situations, which was why they were so well versed in the arts of espionage and sabotage.

*Course correction entered, Captain,* the younger male answered.

*This is Mako. Coming into the shuttle-bay now, ma'am. If you hear a stompy, that's me. I'd appreciate it if your team hold fire. It took a hell of a lot to take this damn thing without blowing it. I wanna keep it.*

There were sounds of laughter coming around Williams; apparently her squadmates enjoyed the joke as well. Shepard couldn't help but smile herself. It definitely took skill to shoot out the canopy and take out the pilot without causing too much collateral damage.

"Copy that, LT. Sorry Williams, there's no time to get in the bay. You're going to have to leave your toy behind."

There was more laughter.

*Ah man, that is so unfair!* the lieutenant mockingly pouted.

Shepard indulgently smiled at her friend's response. "Hammer-head. Mark!"

The Spectre turned back to Miranda, who she didn't quite trust to be alone in the cockpit with her bondmate, junior officer and suspect AI. "Lawson with me." The Spectre headed for the airlock gantry. She would not board the ship again until all her people were safely away. They had approximately four minutes left before the command tower went critical. "Liara see if you can't do something for the prisoner, but keep her bound until we can transfer her to the brig."

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

The orange compscreen lit up with targeting information. It was time to see if EDI was true to her word, or rather her programming directive, and would follow Commander Shepard's orders. The Commander let the AI do her job, setting the SR-2's sights on the central point of the space station's super structure and staying with it once the target was acquired.

Two warships swooped into position like circling sharks over contested pray. Two sets of double Thanix cannon barrels, one belonging to the _Normandy_ the other the SR-2, swung into position. The cannons, developed by the turians, were miniaturized versions of the weapon used by Sovereign during the battle over the Citadel.

"Firing solution acquired," EDI announced.

"All weapons open. FIRE!" roared the Spectre "Bring it down!"

Remarkably still alive onboard the dying space station, a bald man with the name Wilson stencilled on his Cerberus issued hazmat suit crawled of a shipping container he had cowered in for the past forty-five minutes. The hazmat suit's maglock boots clanged against the metal surface of the floor as he limped towards one of the gaping holes in the hull. The chunk of station looked as if some great mother of all threshermaws had taken a bite out of its side; metal and wires sparked and smoked in its ruin. Fortunately, the emergency measures of the station still functioned despite the catastrophic power failure station wide. The massive hull-breach was sealed off by a shimmering cyan force field. Wilson stood agog unable to comprehend what he was seeing. From his point of view, it looked as if the stolen SR-2 was pointing her cannons directly as his head at point-blank-range.

"OH FUC-"

The cannons burst open with full fire of blue pulses of superheated molten metal shaped and accelerated by electromagnetic fields. The streams impacted the target with relativistic velocities dealing horrendous damage. Without shields and k-barriers, augmented by the damage already sustained by Kirrahe's assault, the station never stood a chance of surviving the onslaught. Cold-space filled temperedly with trillions of microscopic incandescent metal fragments, propelled past the retreating ships by the sudden liberated energy.

MEMEMEMEMEMEME

*We are the crew of the _Normandy_, we are one. And we will only triumph as one. Remember this moment. This day is not incongruous with our great objective; in fact it is very much the opposite. Cerberus meant to sow discord between our races, they did not succeed. We have bled Cerberus. We WILL bleed the Collectors and we WILL bleed the Reapers!*

The bold voice of the Commander stirred the hearts of her crew both on the _Normandy_ and the SR-2. Even sitting in their cells within the brig, Kelly Chambers and Jacob Taylor were stirred by the speech though both in different ways. Chambers carried the façade of someone star-struck, Taylor on the other hand, despite the fact he felt inspired enough to take on the Reapers himself, grew more worried by each passing moment.

*We have been given leave by the Council to investigate the disappearances of human colonies in the Terminus Systems. Because there exists a potential for an aggressive retaliation or even war should a ship crewed by Council Space military personnel stir up trouble in Terminus Space, I have been ordered to keep this mission unofficial.

*Because of this, the Council has recalled all militant personnel of the turian Hierarchy and salarian STG. With the exception of a very select few, the Science team has been reassigned to undisclosed R and D labs. You will work closely with the recent finds the _Normandy_ has uncovered in hopes to secure methods of offensive and defensive technology for when the Reapers do attack.

*However, Alliance personal while on 'personal leave will remain in deployment under my direct command as an 'independent militia.' This distinction means while serving under me, you will be serving a Council Spectre and not the Alliance. As this is an unofficial mission, I cannot order Alliance personnel into service. I must ask for volunteers. The Alliance will, however, denounce any knowledge of this operation should we encounter hostile retaliation from the Terminus Systems. I'm sorry to say that while volunteers will be getting hazard pay, if there is a fatality, your families will not receive severance and compensation packages. I want each of you to consider this very carefully before you decide and make certain that should you volunteer, this is a choice you are comfortable with. It will not reflect poorly on your records should you choose not to proceed.

*Like our mission against Saren, the SR-2 will be operating with a skeletal crew with a minimum of fifteen. Those who wish to proceed into the Terminus Systems will report to the _Normandy_ shuttle bay for reassignment to the SR-2. Said transfers will take place after we dock on Illium. I will give you the next twenty-four hours for consideration.

*There is one more thing.* Here Shepard paused in her address. *A while back, the Council made another decision. One where they declared that I _request _the change of ID of the wavecrest first christened as _Victory_ to the _Normandy. _ You all know by now I was not comfortable with those orders, but I followed them. The Council's wisdom decreed that Shepard and the _Normandy_ are synonymous. Therefore, I believe I will carry on this path of wisdom. The SR-2 is not only going to get a new paint job, to be rid of the hideous Cerberus color scheme, she will be given a new name. One that belongs on the profile of this ship. One people will recognize.

*Welcome to the _Normandy _SR-2.*

It seemed all at once the crew cheered. Their voices could be heard on every level of every deck.

*The wavecrest is a fine ship, beautiful and powerful, but she was never the _Normandy_. She is the _Victory_, she always will be.* Shepard went on to say, *The Council may not like it but they set the precedent when they forced me to make the change first.*

Another cheer and a rousing burst of laughter. Even in her cell, Chambers was smiling.

*I want to make something perfectly clear to my crew. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve along side such fine, talented and dedicated people; both civilian and military. You were each hand-picked for a reason and if I had it my way none of you would be leaving. We have only come this far because of your diligence and your hard work. We are the crew of the _Normandy_, we are one, and we _have _triumphed as one. Remember that. Shepard out.*


End file.
